CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY

Nurturing, resisting, breaking through

INTRODUCTION

There is an old story, perhaps less told now than it used to be, of a young curate who was invited to stay at the Bishop’s house.[i] Being new to the ministry and rather timid, he took great care to be as polite and reverent as possible to the Bishop.  At breakfast time, the Bishop noticed that the curate pulled a face when he tried eating the boiled egg on his plate, “Dear me,” said the Bishop, “I’m afraid you’ve got a bad egg, Mr Jones!” The curate, desperate not to offend his host and superior, replied, ” Oh no, my Lord, I assure you parts of it are excellent!”

I will be referring to this story later on, but it got me thinking along other lines. Who likes Scotch eggs? I’ll be exploring what this can teach us about the Christian life, not forgetting of course what we read in Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians, and Jesus’ words to his disciples. I want to make three points as we look at these Bible passages: nurturing new life, resisting pressure, and breaking through. But first, let’s cut open the egg…

We’ve been thinking for the last six weeks about the Thessalonian church, its blessings and its difficulties. Our overall theme has been ‘holiness and hope in a hostile world’. I would like to suggest that we see the egg here as representing our life together in Christ, while the surrounding meat might represent the world around us, sometimes hostile, but at least a barrier to effective Christian living. 

1 – NURTURING NEW LIFE

I liked the image of the scotch egg, because eggs remind us of Easter when they symbolise new life in the risen Christ, or the stone that was rolled away from the tomb. When someone becomes a Christian, there is, as Paul wrote to the Corinthians, a new creation![ii] This new life might not be very visible at first. Looking from the outside the egg is hidden. Our new faith, which might start as nothing more than a vague wish to find out more about Jesus, or a need for forgiveness, has to be nurtured, strengthened and matured before we can reach our full potential for Christ.

Nurturing our spiritual life is something that we can do to some extent in private. Regular Bible reading, personal prayer, listening to worship songs or other Christian music, going on retreat or study days. All these help us to understand the faith and get in the habit of ‘thinking like a Christian’. Most of us here, I’m sure, are well along that journey, but maybe there are some aspects where we could each do more.

However, it is often said that there is no such thing as an individual Christian. God made us for fellowship with other people. Jesus called twelve men to form a very close learning community around him, and beyond that many other men and women who followed him and supported the apostles.

Perhaps we can repurpose the image of the scotch egg here: Jesus the bright yolk at the centre, his closest followers in white around him, and a wider group of followers beyond them, who perhaps regard themselves as ‘occasional’ Christians. Consider, for a moment, where you are in that image. Are you close to Jesus, part of that committed community of believers worshiping and praying together regularly? Or a little further out, attracted by the Christian message but not yet committed? Or perhaps some here are first time or occasional visitors just wanting to see what we’re about. Wherever you are, I would encourage you to think about coming closer in, becoming more a part of the Christian community – here in Bramley or wherever you live.

The fact you are in church this morning shows that you understand this: that the new life can only really be nurtured fully in the context of Christian fellowship. We know that worship together is far more uplifting than just listening to a CD or podcast and builds a sense of community. Praying together builds a sense of common purpose. Listening to the experience of others, whether through a sermon or just talking over coffee, helps us to understand all aspects of the Christian life, and see it from the perspective of other believers. Acting together through the ministries of the local church – Bramley’s families, the foodbank, West Leeds Youth and others – not only helps us develop and use our gifts but also deepens that sense of common purpose, of being the family of God.

2 – RESISTING PRESSURE

Gone are the days when most people in western Europe identified as Christians and belonged to a local church. We are now the minority. About a million people in England attend a Church of England service regularly.[iii] That figure may double if you include other denominations, but still fewer than five percent of the population.

Take that alongside the growth of other religions and humanism, the recognised problems that the church as a whole is facing, and the way that social media creates and magnifies division. It’s perhaps not surprising that we as committed Christians can come in for criticism from our friends or in social and mainstream media. The pressure to conform to worldly standards that are incompatible with Christian ones will only continue to grow. To that extent, we do indeed live in a hostile world.

Whole scotch egg

But the scotch egg is a sphere, which is the strongest and most stable of shapes, able to resist enormous pressure from without. And we are strongest together, especially when we pray together. Remember Jesus’ words: “if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven”. You will find that the closer to the centre you are, the easier it is to resist the pressures from outside and follow the way of Christ.

I need to say something about the difficult words in verse 12 about those who “have charge of you in the Lord and admonish you”. In the story I started with, the curate saw himself as in a fairly low position in a strict hierarchy of church leadership, addressing the bishop as ‘Lord’ and fearful of offending him. Some people may still have that idea of Christian ministry – the bishop or priest being there to admonish people whenever they sin or even speak out of turn.

In one sense, it is true: within the Church of England, ministers such as Julia and I have had to “declare our obedience to the Lord Bishop of Leeds and his successors”. But the phrase ‘those over you in the Lord’ means not only priests but mentors, teachers, and leaders of smaller groups within the church. Anyone who has a role in helping to nurture the faith of others, in fact.

In practice, I find very few leaders relish the prospect of criticising those in their care. We know very well that we in turn are answerable, not just to the Bishop, but to God. Furthermore, our calling is as pastors – shepherds of the flock, whose desire is not to hurt or lose those in our care but to tend you and prevent you from straying.

For no community is perfect, even that of the local church. And the better we get to know one another, the more scope there is for disagreement and at least giving unintended offence. Linda and I know this from our experience of living on the Scargill community, thirty or more Christians spending six days a week in each other’s company, at work, rest and prayer. There were definitely times when I, or others, needed that admonition, being reminded of the standards the community expects of its members. It falls to the leaders of the community to take others to task when difficulties arise, but always in love and always with the intention of building back better.

Both Paul and Jesus give advice on dealing with the difficulties that always arise in relationships within a close community. Paul suggests to the Thessalonians how to behave towards brothers and sisters who are new or less strong in their faith, those perhaps further from the centre who haven’t made a commitment yet or haven’t yet understood what Christian standards of behaviour might be. To quote Tom Wright’s translation of verse 14: ‘warn those who step out of line, console the downcast, help the weak, be warm-hearted and patient towards everybody’.[iv]

St Matthew, more than the other Gospel writers, was writing for a newly established Christian community, so he brings together Jesus’ sayings on the subject. At first there looks to be a contradiction here: do we simply ‘forgive seventy-seven times’ when someone causes offence, or follow a formal disciplinary procedure that starts with a private word, then a meeting with the elders, and finally a congregational meeting? The explanation, I suggest, is this: behaviour that disrupts the communal life needs to be dealt with by the community; but at the same time, it’s important that the person who has been hurt tries not to take it personally, rather let the community deal with the matter and forgive the offender at a one-to-one level. Not easy, but it’s the best way in such situations.

3 – BREAKING THROUGH

Most of Paul’s words to the Thessalonian church are aimed at relations within the community. But some of them can be seen in a wider context. “Do good to one another and to all” (v.15) seems to imply a duty to do good first within the church, and also beyond it. Jesus said that we will be known as Christians by our love for each other[v] – that is, by our ability to live as a close community without being broken apart by arguments and slander. But that love then has to extend to all our neighbours, the and way we spread the good news of Christ’s love to the wider community around us. 

Returning to the egg model, the outer layers might represent the barriers to us doing this. What prevents us from breaking through the walls of the church, so to speak, to proclaim to the world the new life within us which is there for anyone to experience? The barriers are many: natural shyness, fear of ridicule, a feeling of inadequacy, or simply being too busy with all life’s other activities.

But what took Jesus’ first disciples from their fearful retreat in the upper room to proclaiming Christ crucified and risen in the streets of Jerusalem?  Nothing more or less than the Holy Spirit. It is in the Spirit’s power, and not in our own strength, that we find ourselves enabled and emboldened to break through these reservations and take the love of Christ and his good news out into our community.

What opens us up to the work of the Holy Spirit in the first place? I suggest the answer is in verses 16 to 18 of the Thessalonians reading: “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances”. As we do these things: rejoicing, praying and giving thanks, we will be open to the Spirit within us enabling us to break through the layers of reluctance, timidity and the world’s hostility, and be the people Jesus wants us to be.

So there you have it. The scotch egg with its surprising centre can represent the new life within us that needs to be nurtured. The strength of the sphere represents the community helping each other to grow in love and resist pressure from without. And with the Holy Spirit within us we can break through whatever is holding us back to reveal the new life in Christ to the world around. This egg is not merely ‘good in parts’, it is God’s perfect and precious gift to his Church. With apologies, of course, to vegans. Let’s pray.

Lord Jesus, we give you thanks:
for the new life to be nurtured within us,
for the church that you established to bind your people together in love,
and for the gift of the Holy Spirit to equip us for service
and break through the barriers around us.
So make us joyful in your service,
both in private and when we meet together.
Let us persevere in prayer, both at home and in public worship.
And let us be thankful to our heavenly Father
for all that he has done and continues to do for us.
Amen.

[i] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curate%27s_egg accessed 16 October 2024

[ii] 2 Corinthians 5.17

[iii] https://www.churchofengland.org/media/press-releases/church-attendance-rises-second-year-running accessed 17 October 2024

[iv] Tom Wright, ‘Paul for Everyone: Galatians and Thessalonians’, SPCK 2002, p.130

[v] John 13:35

Gleaning for our time

A sermon for Harvest Festival at St Thomas, Stanningley. 13 October 2024.

Text: Leviticus 19:9-10
When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap to the very edges of your field, or gather the gleanings of your harvest. You shall not strip your vineyard bare, or gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and the alien: I am the Lord your God.

Les Glaneuses By Léon Augustin Lhermitte - The Athenaeum
‘Les glaneuses’ (Gleaning women)
by Léon Augustin Lhermitte
Public Domain / Wikimedia Commons

Have you ever been scrumping? I don’t mean stealing apples, but eating windfalls, or picking fruit from neglected trees or overhanging branches? Or do you ever go foraging for wild food – nuts, berries, mushrooms? Do you grow some of your own food?  I ask these not to shame anyone – I don’t grow anything myself and rarely forage anything – but to start us off thinking about what were once common practices.

Our reading today from the Old Testament is part of the teaching about harvests. Harvests feature quite prominently in parts of the Bible. In a warmer climate where crops grow more quickly, there were two harvests a year and many regulations and traditions around them. But at the heart of them was giving thanks for God’s provision, and ensuring nothing was wasted.

The practice described here is known in English as ‘Gleaning.’ It can cover picking grain or fruit that the harvesters missed, or which has fallen to the ground. The right to do this, to benefit from what others have left over, was restricted to those who needed it most – poor people and immigrants.

As well as the obvious benefit of letting poor people have food, this practice of gleaning helps to build inclusive and trusting communities, where those wealthy enough to own farmland or orchards let the landless have their share of the harvest. There is also a spiritual dimension. The verses finish with the reminder ‘I am the Lord your God,’ or in some translations ‘I am your God, the Eternal one.’ God’s eternal principles include that the earth is his, the fruits of the earth are to be shared with all, and all people should have equal dignity in the community.

Throughout the Bible we read of a people who live close to the land, enjoying a mostly regular pattern of sowing and reaping. Winter was followed by spring, rain watered the earth, crops grew, the sun shone, crops were harvested, the poor gleaned, and the whole community gave thanks.

Jesus built on this Jewish teaching by telling parables such as that of the Rich Fool [i]who built bigger barns to hold every last sheaf of wheat, rather than give some of it away to the poor, and paid for it with his life. Jesus also spoke of the importance of having ‘Treasures in Heaven’[ii] by which he meant building up credit with God by giving away what we don’t really need on earth.

I’m reminded of Oscar Wilde’s story of the Selfish Giant[iii] in which the giant’s garden, put out of bounds to children, remains like Narnia in perpetual winter until he allows children in to share it, and spring returns at last.

Until very recently in historical terms people reading their Bibles would have understood all this very well. The cycle of nature that I have just described still happened just as it always had. In many parts of Europe, including England, the tradition of poor people being allowed to glean continued until the late 18th century.[iv]

The founder of Methodism, John Wesley, understood this principle too. He also lived in the 18th century, growing up in a poor family in rural Lincolnshire at the end of the pre-industrial age. His rule with money was always to tithe first, then meet his own basic needs, then be aware of the needs of others before enjoying any luxuries. It is often said that while teaching at Oxford University, he was comfortably off on £30 a year, gave away a tenth of it and living on £27. But when he was rich and famous, earning over a thousand pounds a year – a fortune in those days – he still lived on no more than thirty, saved no more than a hundred, and gave away all the rest to the poor.

But we don’t live in Bronze Age Israel, or even 18th century England. Since Wesley’s day, several things have changed our world enormously. Firstly, the Industrial Revolution and the rise of large commercial farms put a stop to gleaning, along with many other rural practices. Most of the world no longer lives by subsistence farming or in small villages. Industrial scale farming provides most of the world’s food, and as city dwellers we buy most of it in shops.

All this means that world farmers produce enough food to feed everyone, if it was shared equally. Yet an enormous amount of food is wasted – some studies suggest as much as a third of the food grown around the world either never reaches the shops, or is bought and not eaten, for a whole host of reasons.[v]

Then again, climate change means the seasons are no longer reliable. I hardly need remind you of the younger generation of the impact that the effects of climate change will have throughout your own lives. Across the world, harvests are failing year after year as longer droughts, heavier rainfall and depleted water reserves make it ever harder for farmers to make a living, let alone have food left over for the poor to pick up for free. For example, parts of Uganda are on the verge of starvation this year following five years of drought.[vi] Development agencies such as Tearfund and Practical Action are helping to tackle this by teaching better farming techniques and developing more drought-resilient crops, but much remains to be done before famine ceases to claim so many lives.

So how can we – younger or older – apply these Biblical principles of gleaning, tithing and inclusion in a rapidly changing world? Before I look at practical details, let’s go back to where I started, with harvest thanksgiving. Because thanksgiving to God for all his generous provision should be the motivation for all our giving: we give because we have received. As Christians, we are always thankful for God’s provision of an abundant world, for his Word in the Bible to guide us, and for sending his only Son to teach us to love our neighbour as ourselves, and ultimately to give his life for us. That’s where we start.

There is a Sanskrit saying (sometimes wrongly attributed to Pope Francis, though I expect he would say Amen to it) – that goes like this:

Rivers do not drink their own water;
Trees do not eat their own fruit;
The sun does not shine on itself;
And flowers do not spread their fragrance for themselves.
Living for others is a rule of nature.
We are all born to help each other.[vii]

So now let’s look at the detail of what we can do, given that we can’t get back to agricultural village life when we live in a city. Do you head for the clearance shelf at the supermarket, or go to the market at the end of the day when prices are reduced? Or eat at a junk food café? As I asked at the beginning, do you gather windfalls or pick nuts and berries from trees in public places? If so, you are gleaning. You are stopping good food going to waste. Do you freeze the leftovers from your meals for another time, and check if food past its best by date is still OK before throwing it away? Again, minimising waste.

Many community groups are doing something about this issue. Examples include junk food cafes, community pantries, FareShare, community orchards (I’m going from here to a meeting about planting one in St Peter’s churchyard in Bramley), and last but not least, foodbanks. As you may know, I work for the Trussell foodbank in North and West Leeds. Last year we provided 16,000 meals, a third of them for children and the majority for households including someone with some form of disability. We have over 100 volunteers across nine locations. In the long term we’re campaigning to put an end to the need for foodbanks, but as long as there’s a need, we’ll be there, with your help.

But it isn’t just about giving, it’s about sharing, another Christian principle. The foodbank is more than just offering free food, it’s about solidarity, support and community. Our principles are welcoming everyone whatever their circumstances, helping them to access all the financial and practical support available to them, providing a listening ear to people who have no-one else to turn to, and of course treating everyone as equals. So, thank you for anything you have brought today, which we receive gratefully. And please consider what you can offer to the community regularly by way of food or money donations, your time as a volunteer, or supporting us in prayer.

Let me finish by offering this prayer for us all:

Lord of the harvest, make us thankful for what you have given us.
Bless us with enough to meet our basic needs.
But make us aware of the needs of others around us,
Willing joyfully to share whatever we have grown or earned,
Allowing others to glean whatever we have to spare.
In Jesus’ name. Amen.

[i] Luke 12:13-21

[ii] Luke 12:33

[iii] From ‘The Happy Prince and Other Tales’ (1888), reprinted in e.g. ‘Oscar Wilde: Complete Short Fiction’, Penguin 1994.

[iv] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gleaning accessed 8 October 2024.

[v] Guardian Newspaper, 8 October 2024 https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/oct/08/the-scandal-of-food-waste-and-how-we-can-stop-it

[vi] https://www.tearfund.org/stories/2024/04/uganda-hunger-crisis-only-a-matter-of-time accessed 8 October 2024.

[vii] Quoted in a social media post by Tandag Diocese but various fact checking websites refute the attribution to Francis.

Christian Friendship

Mark 9:30-37 / 1 Thessalonians 2:17-3:13

A sermon for Bramley St Peter, 22 September 2024

This is the third in a series of six sessions looking at the first of St Paul’s letters to the churches that he had planted. The overall theme is ‘Holiness and Hope in a Hostile World’. Two weeks ago, Alan gave us the context of the letter. He went on to speak of doing works of faith and labours of love, and being steadfast in hope.

Last week Julia spoke about Christian Imitation. She encouraged us to be Courageous, Wholehearted and Steadfast in our faith so that others can imitate us, as we imitate others.  She spoke of how it’s inevitable that without realising it, we do imitate the people around us – family, friends, leaders in church and society, and nowadays ‘influencers’ in the media.

You can hear recordings of these previous sermons on the parish website

That leads us on nicely to the third chapter of 1 Thessalonians, which is about friendship. Unless you’re a hermit, which obviously you are not because you’re here in church today, you will have had the opportunities to make friends of one kind or another throughout your life. I say opportunities, because sadly not everyone does take the opportunity. I’ve spoken before about the issues of desocialisation and loneliness, which Rachel Reeves describes as “toxic to health and devastating to communities”.  To have friends at all is far better than to have none.

But not all friendships are equal.  Possibly the longest passage in the Christian scriptures about friendship is actually not found in most Bibles. It comes from the book of Ecclesiasticus, which is regarded as a book of wise sayings by a rabbi, rather than the actual Word of God. But it’s worth quoting :

5 Pleasant speech multiplies friends,
   and a gracious tongue multiplies courtesies.
6 Let those who are friendly with you be many,
   but let your advisers be one in a thousand.
7 When you gain friends, gain them through testing,
   and do not trust them hastily.
8 For there are friends who are such when it suits them,
   but they will not stand by you in time of trouble.
9 And there are friends who change into enemies,
   and tell of the quarrel to your disgrace.
10 And there are friends who sit at your table,
   but they will not stand by you in time of trouble.

Ecclesiasticus 6:5-10 (New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition)

We have probably all lost friends over the years because we have fallen out over some matter or other – the ‘friends who change into enemies’ or at best cease to be friends. One friend didn’t speak to me for several years because she didn’t get a party invitation; another ended our friendship completely due to misunderstanding the motivation behind a Christmas present.  There was another friend who was a terrible gossip, and eventually I chose to walk away from the friendship, rather than the other way round, because her untrue allegations about good people in our group were becoming toxic to all of us. This is all part of the ’hostile world’.

If the writer of Ecclesiasticus had the concept of online ‘friends’ that we have today, I’m sure he would have something to say about them, too. It’s now becoming clear that young people in particular are being harmed by commercial interests and peer pressure on social media making them conform to models of lifestyle that can be deeply harmful to self-worth or health.

But looking at the more postive aspect, what makes a good and lasting friendship? And what is specifically Christian about these? The same passage in Ecclesiaticus goes on to say this:

14 Faithful friends are a sturdy shelter:
   whoever finds one has found a treasure.
15 Faithful friends are beyond price;
   no amount can balance their worth.
16 Faithful friends are life-saving medicine;
   and those who fear the Lord will find them.

Ecclesiasticus 6:14-16 (as above)

These faithful friendships – often those made early in our adult life, or sometimes even sooner, and which last for decades – are founded on mutual respect (which includes respecting each other’s differences as well as shared interests), empathy and a willingness to get involved when our friend is in trouble.  The Biblical writer describes these as “one in a thousand” which sounds about right – we probably get to know a thousand people reasonably well in the course of a lifetime, but may only have a couple of really good friends. Treasure them.

There are of course other references in the Bible to friendship, both between God and people, and between people. And just as we believe Jesus to be both fully God and fully human, so he models for us what it is to be a perfect friend, and it’s this that we see in both the Gospel reading today, and this third chapter of 1 Thessalonians. These are our guide to what makes a true Christian friendship.

Firstly, Christian friends are Committed to each other, right from the start. Because we are more than friends, we are brothers and sisters in one family. Jesus was committed to his disciples, especially the twelve apostles who  stayed close to him for three years. And they were equally committed to him. As Simon Peter said on one  occasion, “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life!” (John 6:68)  Paul was equally committed to all the congregations he had planted, and to each member that he knew by name – just look at the long list of dedications at the end of each of his letters! Time and again he says that he prays regularly for each of his friends.

As an example from my own life, I take Ian. As an eighteen year old, new to life at university and quite shy, I would have found it hard to make friends in my first term.  At that time I wan’t a committed Christian although I come from a Christian family. But Ian, a member of the Christian Union, made friends with me. He helped me settle in to university life, shared meals with me, and prayed for me. It was at his invitation that I went to an evangelistic meeting at which I made a commitment to accept Jesus for myself.  Ian then encouraged me in those first few months when people can easily slip away from faith after making an initial commitment, continued to pray with me, and made sure I became a regular member of a church, even though it wasn’t the same church he attended. We still pray for each other, and though we live at opposite ends of England, we try to meet up when we can.

Secondly, Christian friends are Caring. Jesus called his disciples to be ‘least of all and servants of each other’. He proved constantly that this was his own model of friendship, whether it was washing their feet, forgiving them when they made mistakes, and finally putting into practice what he had preached: “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” John 15:13. This was exemplified by Maximilian Kolbe, the Christian priest who gave his life as a substitute for a Jewish man in a Nazi concentration camp.There is no place in God’s kingdom for regarding one person as greater than another. Of course we need leaders, but Christian leaders shouldn’t think of themselves as greater than those they lead, quite the opposite.

Paul also demonstrated this immense care for all his own disciples, at whatever cost to himself. Sometimes he lays it on a bit thick, listing all his problems from shipwrecks to floggings. But all of it, he says, was for the benefit of those whom God had called to follow him. What Paul’s quality of life was like – or that of Jesus – didn’t matter to them, as long as they were serving the people God had called them to be friends with. It’s that radical sense of putting ourselves down to allow the other person’s faith to flourish, that really marks Christian friendship.

This caring friendship can show itself in other ways. The letter to Thessalonians refers to Timothy’s visit. He was a colleague in Paul’s mission, and was willing to travel hundreds of miles each way to visit the Thessalonians, encourage them in Paul’s name, and come back with a report. This ‘go-between’ role enabled Paul to continue in prayer and in nurturing his disciples by way of his writings.

Among my own friends here I would mention Sue and Ian (a different Ian this time!) They are an examplary Christian couple and have been my friends for forty years. When I was single they often invited me and other single people to dinner, prayed regularly with and for me. When I was given short notice to leave rented accommodation they offered to put me up in their house – in the end I didn’t need to take the offer up but it was there.  When a relationship suddenly ended and I was in shock, it was Sue who comforted me. In later years they have let us stay in their holday home more than once. When another church member was sent to prison, they remained friends with him when others fell away. This model of costly servanthood – putting our homes, money, time and emotions into strengthening other people’s faith and giving help when it’s most needed – is what marks Christian friendship out from the sort of fair-weather friend described in Ecclesiasticus.

Thirdly, Christian friends are Constructive.  By which I mean, constructively critical. This can be the hardest part and pehaps the most distinctively Christian: friendships that are open, honest and vulnerable.. Sometimes it can be tempting always to go along with what people want, to encourage them to keep doing what they like to do, and ignoring what we think may be wrong, for the sake of ‘not rocking the boat’. But if we are committed to our friends, and care for them, then we will be willing to criticise them, in a way that seeks their own welfare. And the other way round, too: willing to be subject to this sort of constructive criticism, knowing that our friend has our best interests at heart.

Jesus wasn’t afraid of rocking the boat, sometimes literally! In the reading today, he takes his disciples to task for arguing about which of them was greatest.  They had totally misunderstood the sort of friendships that Jesus wanted his followers to have among themselves, and he was quick to point that out. He once told his followers “Be perfect, as your heavenly father is perfect”. He knew they would never be perfect in this life, but corrected them to help them move towards that perfection.

Paul also, in his letters, often criticises certain people in his churches, sometimes by name, sometimes anonymously. But alongside that, his evident love and compassion for them is such that he clearly doesn’t relish doing this.

This is why there’s a long tradition in some Christian circles of having a ‘confessor’ or ‘spiritual director’. An experienced Christian, usually outside one’s own congregation, who will develop a deep friendship of this sort. One in which you can be open about the mistakes and problems in your life, in confidence, knowing that they will not be shared as gossip. The spiritual director can then encourage their friend in everything good in the Christian life, but also be willing to ask probing questions, to point out weaknesses, to suggest ways in which their relationships with God and other people could be better. Ian, whom I mentioned just now, fulfilled that role for me for quite a long time; but he lives a long disctance away now, so I have a spiritual director more locally in Leeds.

So to draw these thoughts together: We are looking for what friendships of holiness and hope may look like in a world where friendships can be fleeting, self-serving and even harmful. We find an alternative model of deep friendship in the way that Jesus made disciples and formed a close-knit group of friends who would go on to lead his mission after his resurrection, when he had laid his life down for them and all who would come after.  

Another example from which we can learn is Paul’s love and concern for his own disciples scattered around Greece and Asia Minor, whatever the cost to himself, and his commitment to praying for them.  We have looked at the sort of long-term friendships in our own lives, the people who have been there for us through all of life’s ups and downs. And the role of the spiritual director in being both encouraging and constructively critical.

Holy and hopeful friendships, it seems, depend on these three factors: commitment to each other as the Body of Christ, care for those in trouble as Christ cares for us, and being a constructively critical friend, helping each other towards perfection in Christ. May you find such friends as these, and be a faithful friend to others. Amen.

Which Community?

Sermon for Evensong, Headingley St Michael & All Angels, 11 August 2024
Reading: Hebrews 12:1-17

What a week it has been! Like all of us who preach or otherwise have opportunity to comment on events, my thoughts have been influenced this week by events that have unfolded since the murder of three children in Southport.  Southport, as it happens, is where I was born, though I don’t have any relatives or friends there now.

I stand, of course, with all people of goodwill in condeming both the initial act of murder, and the violence and rioting that have ensued on the streets of cities across the UK. Injury, looting, arson and the unseen psychological scars suffered by many people in minority communities are an abomination to God. Where, we might ask, is the protection that God has promised us in tonight’s psalm? “Thou shalt not be afraid for any terror by night: nor for the arrow that flieth by day”1

We have seen rioting on the streets before, 2011 being the last time it spread beyond one city. What seems particularly unusual about this summer’s events is that many of those who took part did not fit the stereotype of a young, poorly educated man from a deprived community. Older people, women and the well-educated were among them. One middle-aged couple  is said to have joined in the violence after their usual afternoon game of bingo.

There has already been much speculation about what lies behind the escalation of violence in response to the initial incident. What seems beyond doubt is that what happened on the streets was to a large extent influenced by what happens online. So-called ‘trolls’ on social media, allegedly reinforced by foreign agents seeking to exploit our divisions, have played on existing fears and prejudices to encourage a violent response. Some of these fears may be counted as ‘legitimate concerns’ about the level of immigration, but I suggest that is more of an excuse than an explanation. The real roots of trouble lie deeper than that. Where do we look behind the online trolling and incitement, for an explanation of why some people respond to it while others condemn it? 

One factor that I want us to look at, I suggest the most important one, is a sense of community – or the lack of one. The rioters may well consider that they belong to a sort of community, one that mainly exists online.  The internet and social media have of course given opportunity for us all to connect with like-minded people wherever they may be. Often for good, but sometimes for ill. 

Being part of an online community, though, is very different from being part of civil society. What people really need is a strong, real-time community rooted in a particular place. It is the lack of such meaningful ties, among other factors, that can give rise to dissatisfaction and suspicion of those who are seen as ‘outsiders’.  

Look at the contrast between those who came together from far and wide to join a temporary mob, and the many people who afterwards came out on the street to start the process of restoring hope. Churches, mosques, and other community groups have quickly come together to clean up, repair, offer support, and stand in solidarity with those who have to endure the hatred of others.  These people may well have communicated through social media groups, but in this instance with their actual neighbours, building on existing local connections or forging new ones in the desire to overcome the forces of hate. The American writer and campaigner for racial justice, Maya Angelou, is credited with saying “Hate has caused a lot of problems in the world, but has not solved one yet.”

What does our Hebrews reading tonight tell us about communities in general and churches in particular? Let me read you verses 14 and 15 in the Jerusalem Bible translation, which I think puts it very well: “Always be wanting peace with all people, and the holiness without which no one can ever see the Lord. Be careful that no-one is deprived of the grace of God and that no root of bitterness should begin to grow and make trouble; this can poison a whole community”.  ‘Depriving people of the grace of God’ might mean failing to share the Good News of his love, while we have seen this week what can grow from the ‘root of bitterness’.

Headingley – as a town, not just the church – does seem to have a stronger sense of community than other parts of Leeds, but I’ve come across many places where the church is the only kind of community association in the area.

We – Christians, church members – can benefit from this kind of community wherever we live. That is the glory of the Church of England’ parish system, and a jewel that perhaps isn’t recognised as such by those who grew up in the church, nor promoted well enough: that to be a Christian is to be received into the sort of supportive and inclusive community that many people can only dream of.

The Gospel properly understood is the ‘good news’ that we take part, not in our own mission, but in God’s mission through Jesus to restore all things to himself. Jesus, who the writer to the Hebrews reminds us “stood such opposition from sinners”. ‘Equality, diversity and inclusion’ is something that companies and other organisations have recently started to take on board as important to their flourishing, but that is not new to us in the church. If we are not equal, diverse and inclusive, how can we be disciples of Jesus?

What also makes the Church stand out from any other kind of community is that it exists not just in the ‘here and now’. The Body of Christ is without boundaries of time or space. When we recite the final phrases of the Apostles’ Creed, it’s easy to miss the significance of what we proclaim: I believe in the holy catholic Church … The Communion of Saints … the forgiveness of sins … the resurrection of the body … and the life everlasting”.

Which brings me, at last, to the first verse of Hebrews chapter 12: “With so many witnesses in a great cloud on every side of us, we too, then, should throw off everything that hinders us”. That ‘great cloud of witnesses’ is both the rest of the worldwide church on earth, and all those who have gone before us. We cannot see them, but our faith is that they in some sense can see us and continue to encourage us – nay, to incite us – to “run the race that is set before us”, as they did.

So to conclude, if this week you have been tempted to be cowed by the violence of the few and the forces of darkness that lie behind them, let me leave you with three thoughts: that most people are reasonable, despise violence and racism as much as we do, and want to respond to hate with love; that in standing up to it, online or in person, we take part in God’s mission of reconciliation through the strength of Christ who suffered for us; and that in doing so we are incited, not by trolls, but by this great cloud of witnesses, this community throughout time and space in which we find our life and meaning.  Amen.  

  1. Psalm 91:5, Book of Common Prayer Psalter ↩︎

Restraining anger

Sermon for Bramley St Peter, 11 August 2024
Text: Ephesians 4:25-5:2

Protests in Leeds, August 2024
Protests in Leeds, August 2024

It started in a bar after work. “It’s them”, said Dem, the influencer.  “That’s why we can’t get work any more. It’s them.  They’re not like us. They don’t respect us. Don’t understand us. Don’t share our religion. They’re after our jobs”. “Even in our great city!” someone else added. “Yes, our great city!” everyone else repeated.

Soon they were out in the streets. Two of the people they called “them” happened to pass by. Legal immigrants innocently walking through the streets of this great city. Before they knew what was happening, they were being dragged off to the nearest stadium where a rally was now taking place, thousands of working men joining in.  For two hours all that could be heard was a chant of “Our great city!” with perhaps the odd cry of “It’s all their fault” – maybe even “Death to them”.

Eventually the mayor heard what was going on and came to the stadium. Grabbing the microphone he appealed to the mob for calm. “What’s all this about?” he asked. “These people are not after your jobs. They haven’t broken the law.  Everyone knows our city is great, but these people coming here aren’t going to change that. Go home, or the government will call out the troops and read the riot act”.

Fortunately  it worked. On this occasion there was no more violence. But life in the city was never quite the same. Those whose lives had been threatened that night, would never forget it. An event to be responded to – not with violence, but with a renewed determination to live peacefully in their host nation. To be, in the words of one of their religious leaders, “all things to all people”.

Because what I have described was not the riots in English cities this week – though it could have been. It’s all there in the Bible.  Acts chapter 19, usually titled ‘The riot in Ephesus’. And St Paul was there.1 As his fellow Jews were dragged to the ampitheatre by the mob, to the chants of ‘Great is Artemis of the Ephesians’, he had to be restrained from getting involved. Paul knew both sides of hatred. Until his conversion on the Damascus road, he was the one calling for Christians to be imprisoned or even killed. So he would have understood the hatred that was coursing through the veins of that Ephesian mob. Maybe he was tempted to revert to his old ways of violence, this time in defence of the Christians.

Can we be in any doubt that he would have remembered this incident when, about ten years later, he wrote his letter to the church in Ephesus? He wrote to a church that still knew the realities of division. Those who had been caught up in the riot may still have borne the psychological scars of it. The church itself, started among Jews, had grown through Paul’s ministry to include many gentile believers, and that by itself could give much cause for tension between them. And in a city of around 50,000 people2 they were, as a religious community, still a small minority, always at risk of being the subect of suspicion and even violence from the wider population.

This, then, is the context of the passage that Michael read to us. When Paul writes words such as ‘falsehood’, ‘anger’, ‘wrath’, ‘wrangling’ and ‘slander’, he may be reliving the events of that night. But in those ten years, he has changed. He no longer invites his hearers to express their anger with violence. Instead, he writes of ‘truth’, he uses verbs like ‘building up’, ‘being kind’, ‘forgiving’, ‘living in love’: these are the exact opposite of the hatred that the believers in Ephesus had experienced.

They are also the only way in which divisions in society can be healed. The American writer and campaigner for racial justice, Maya Angelou, is credited with saying “Hate has caused a lot of problems in the world, but has not solved one yet.” At a time when hatred, division and violence seem to be growing in our own society, it is even more important that we resist the temptation to give the proverbial ‘eye for an eye’. I know when I hear of atrocities being committed that I am tempted to feel hate towards those who commit them. And when I read comments on social media, posted by someone I know personally, that repeat false accusations against certain groups of people, it’s tempting to wade in and be rude in my response. But that isn’t the way of peace.

This week, we have seen some truly heart-warming responses to the violence across the UK. Churches, mosques, and other community groups have quickly come together to clean up, repair, offer support, and stand in solidarity with those who have to endure the hatred of others. In the long term, that’s the only way that divisions will be healed. Just as Britain avoided descending into fascism in the 1930s, despite the rabble rousing speeches of Mosley, so I believe the majority today will not be taken in by the hate speech from Tommy Robinson and his like.

However, the letter was written mainly to give advice about how the Christian believers in Ephesus should behave among themselves, particularly given cultural and religious differences among them. After all, if they couldn’t live Christlike lives and promote unity within the church, how could they do so in the more challenging world beyond its walls?

“Be angry”, says Paul – not as a command to feel angry about nothing, but being realistic, recognising that there are things that do rightfully make us angry. But he immediately adds – “do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your anger”.  This is the sort of advice often given to couples, not to let our little household arguments carry on for days, but making it up before we go to bed. Never easy, like any other good advice, it takes a lot of effort.

It’s also good advice within the Church. There will be things that make us angry, or at least annoyed. It might be a new way of doing things in worship, or a PCC decision that we disagree with, or just someone else’s attitude or opinion. Paul’s advice is to let no evil words come out of our mouth, but to use words that “give grace to those who hear”. Again, not easy and it takes effort. The good news here is, that God offers us his help. Paul tells his listeners to ‘be imitators of God’ – which at first seems impossible! – but adds, “as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us”. He also invokes the Holy Spirit, given to us, he says as “a seal for the day of redemption”, meaning something like “protecting us from being rejected by God”. He also refers to the members of the chuch as being “members of one another”. So what at first may seem impossible – responding gracefully to those who annoy or anger us – is made possible by the grace of Christ and the Holy Spirit within us.

When we do feel anger, whether it’s at something happening at home, at church or an injustice in the wider world, what matters is to turn that anger into something constructive. It might mean making time to talk to the person who has angered you, to try and understand their point of view better. Or it may mean finding the confidence to speak up in a discussion for what you believe to be true. Or  volunteering your time to help with some church or conmmunity activity that seeks to make other people’s lives better.

So to sum up, anger is not in itself wrong, especially if it’s anger at what we believe goes against God’s will. What matters is that we don’t let that anger fester or push us into an angry response, but bring it to God in prayer, and seek with the help of the Holy Spirit a constructive way to respond that will be in accordance with God’s grace.  As Paul also wrote to the Roman church, “Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God; for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.’  “

  1. Commentaries disagree on whether Paul actually wrote Ephesians or whether the letter was written by one of his followers in Ephesus (see e.g. Gerd Theissen, ‘The New Testament: An Introduction’, 2002). But either way, the author of the letter would have experienced, or at least been very aware of, the riot in question. ↩︎
  2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ephesus ↩︎

Keeping body and soul together


Detail of a stained glass window in Holy Trinity, Meole Brace
(Shrewsbury) by William Morris, 1871. Photo © Michael Garlick

A sermon for Bramley St Peter, 28 July 2024. Reading: John 6:1-21

“Jesus took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed to those who were seated as much as they wanted” (John 6:11). With these simple actions of taking, giving thanks and sharing, Jesus achieved one of his best remembered miracles, and one of the most significant.

Let us be in no doubt that this miracle happened and is of the greatest importance in understanding Jesus. It’s one of the few acts of Jesus that is mentioned in all four of the gospels. St John, who was probably there when it happened1, gives more space to this than to any of Jesus’ other miraculous signs: almost the whole of chapter 6. The Church of England’s Sunday readings include parts of this chapter for the next five weeks. So we have a whole month to meditate on its meaning. But I’ll try to do the same in under ten minutes.

Let’s look at the obvious physical meaning first. Jesus had thousands of followers, and in this instance, they had followed him miles from their towns around to the far side of Lake Galilee and into the countryside. After spending all day listening to his teaching, they were hungry. A picnic on the grass was just what they needed. Jesus was a man like any other: he would have been hungry too. Normally he resisted the temptation to perform miracles just to impress people, but this time his empathy and compassion for his followers meant that he had to do something to satisfy the hunger of their stomachs. So he took what little food was offered, and somehow made it stretch to feed everyone. What an amazing act of power and generosity that was! No-one was left hungry, no-one had to pay for their food, and there was still more left over than they had to start with!

The first followers of Jesus, when they had been filled with the Holy Spirit, had the same sense of empathy and compassion. Without needing to rely on miracles, one thing they did do was to share whatever they had, including food, with their community. In Acts chapter six, seven men are called to a ministry of distributing food to widows and others in need. It was, if you like, the first Christian foodbank.  I’m reminded of that famous quote of Teresa of Avila: “Christ has no body now but yours, no hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes with which he looks compassion on this world”.

There is, alas, still much hunger in this world. There is no time now to go into the economics and politics of global inequality. But mission, like charity, begins at home. What we do know is that there is hunger in Bramley. Since our foodbank centre began six months ago, we have grown to the point that families totalling between 50 and 100 people every week are being referred to us for emergency food parcels. This is not something incidental to what we do as a church, it is central to it. Whether your contribution is in praying for this ministry, donating food or money, or volunteering on a Tuesday, you are continuing in that tradition started by Stephen and the other apostles of making sure no-one in the community goes hungry. Like the boy with the five loaves, it may seem like nowhere near enough, but Jesus takes our willingness to give, and turns it into plenty.

And while it may not be a miracle, there are answers to prayer. Working in the warehouse, there have been many times when we have been short of particular types of food, and after praying about it, it has been given, just in time. On one occasion we ran out of tomatoes (I think it was) – and the same day a primary school asked us to collect their donations: all that month they had been asking people to give tomatoes, and suddenly we had enough. Just this week we ran out of curry sauce, and someone turned up with plenty of it. Never underestimate the power of prayer or Jesus’ desire from his heart to give us what we need.

So much for the physical sharing of food. But the feeding of the five thousand is so much more than that. It has a very deep spiritual meaning that goes right back to the roots of Judaism, and to Jesus’ birth. Ever since God commanded the Hebrews to eat unleavened bread at Passover, and provided manna to Moses and his people in the wilderness, bread had been a sign of God’s presence with people, such as the freshly baked bread always placed on a table in the tabernacle. The very name of the town of Jesus’ birth – (beit leḥem) – means ‘house of bread’.

Jesus followed up and explained this miracle by referring to himself like this: “I am the Bread of Life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty”. By this, he meant much more than meeting physical hunger. He meant that his presence in us is as important to our spiritual life as eating and drinking is to our physical life. In most Christian churches, this is symbolised every week with the breaking and sharing of bread at communion. Some churches call it the ‘eucharist’ which is simply the Greek word for ‘giving thanks’.

You have probably worked out from my sermon illustrations that I love stained glass. Church windows around England bring the Bible to life in so many different ways.  It’s not difficult to find illustrations of windows that depict the feeding of the five thousand. In most of them, the boy with the loaves and fish is shown kneeling in submission before Jesus. But I found this one that is different. In it, we see Jesus (the one with the bigger halo, obviously) along with Philip and Andrew distributing the bread. In the foreground, four women are sitting and eating their bread: not looking at Jesus directly, but with thoughtful looks as they contemplate the bread they are eating.  For in eating what Jesus has provided, they recognise the Bread of Life.

That window is in a church in Shrewsbury, and was designed in 1871 by William Morris. Three years later in 1874, Morris, the campaigning socialist, designed the ‘acts of mercy’ windows in our own church. Come and look at the window behind me – on your right – and you will see the depiction of Christians feeding the hungry.  Just as we still do week by week in St Margaret’s Room exactly 150 years later.

To understand this miracle, then, we must hold these various concepts together. Our belief in God as Three in One is helpful here.  The loving, providing Father, the God of Abraham and of Moses, who has given us bread as an eternal symbol of his presence. Jesus, his son: the Bread of Life whose very presence is with us as we take and share the communion. Jesus the compassionate, who sees the very real physical needs of the community around us and longs to meet them. And the Holy Spirit who moves us to pray and act to provide food for the hungry.  Not for nothing do we pray every day: “Your will be done, your kingdom come on earth as in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread”. If we ask, he will give. And we will share. 

Amen.

  1. Whether the Gospel of John was actually written by Jesus’ closest disciple remains a matter of argument among Bible scholars. Personally I am convinced that it probably was. ↩︎

Sustainable Food

Sermon for Big Green Week, Sunday 9 June 2024, St Peter’s Bramley.
Readings: Psalm 65; Matthew 25:14-30


This week, beginning today, is designated as Big Green Week. It’s a reminder to us that we live on a green planet. Well, actually a blue planet, as David Attenborough reminds us, since two-thirds of the world’s surface is ocean. But we’re not fish, we live on the land, not the sea.

The land and sea are incredibly diverse, along with the number of species they support. Just think of the different landscapes you can see in the UK: limestone pavements and saltmarshes, peatlands and ancient oak forests, freshwater streams, tidal rivers and the seas that surround us. Each habitat is home to more animals, plants and insects than you have probably ever heard of. Have you ever heard of the ‘twait shad’? No neither had I until I was reading up for this talk. It’s a freshwater fish that lives in the River Severn.

Creation – whether blue or green – is good. Psalm 65 which we read together earlier tells us that God revels in his creation. Throughout the Bible we read of a people who live close to the land, enjoying a mostly regular pattern of sowing and reaping. Winter was followed by spring, rain watered the earth, crops grew, the sun shone, crops were harvested and people gave thanks. Until very recently in historical terms – until perhaps the last two hundred years – that was still the case. In some places it still is: I photographed this farmer with his horse-drawn cart of hay as recently as 1995, in Romania. It illustrates beautifully Psalm 65 verse 11: “your carts overflow with abundance”.


Since the Industrial Revolution, farming has become more ‘efficient’ in the sense that more tonnes of food can be grown on each acre of land, and it can be sold around the world rather than just at the local market. This has many benefits, not least giving us the vast choice that we find in the supermarket, and enabling billions of people to be fed.

But we’re only now realising the downsides of this industrial-scale farming. To grow so much food for so many people means felling ancient forests to grow crops, much of which is used to feed the animals that in turn become the meat on our plates. It means using pesticides and insecticides that threaten many species with extinction. It means keeping animals in cramped conditions indoors fed on grain, rather than grazing in the fields as the adverts might lead us to believe.

This isn’t sustainable. Intensive agriculture using chemicals – the way that farmers manage our land – leads to degradation of the soil – less food being grown each year. Along with climate change which has disrupted long-term pattern of rainfall, it means that one in six of all species of wild animal in the UK is at risk of extinction , whether it’s dormice or grasshoppers, turtle doves or indeed twait shads. You may have noticed there are a lot fewer insects in the summer these days, and insects are important for pollinating both crops and other plants.

What has all this to do with us, here in church? Well, we believe in a God who has created this world with its awesome diversity of life. The book of Genesis tells us that everything God created is good. And that he has given us – humans – the responsibility of looking after it. When we fail to do so, that is sin.

You may think, “I don’t go round chopping down trees or poisoning rivers, I don’t shoot wild birds or spray pesticides”. But there is such a thing as corporate sin. Simply by buying the cheapest food available (grown using pesticides), or flying off on holiday (which contributes to climate change), we are each in a small way guilty of playing a small part in this decline of the natural world.

Does it matter? Yes, it does. At a purely material level, this is unsustainable. Fewer insects means that plants don’t get pollinated. Polluted rivers means it costs more to make our water drinkable, and so on.



But it’s also a spiritual issue that affects our relationship with God. The parable that Jesus told about the three servants who used their master’s money in different ways is about the Day of Judgement. On that day, whether we are still alive or have already died, we will be asked to account not only for our faith in God but also for how we have lived. God will ask us, have we been faithful servants loving our global neighbours? And what have we done with what he has given us?

The parable of the Talents is not about how much we start with but how we use it. The servant who had one talent was not criticised for starting with less than the one who had five. What mattered was that he had done nothing with it. With Jesus, ‘Do nothing’ is not an option. It falls to each and every one of us to use whatever we have to restore the earth’s diversity and productivity.
But what are our resources, our talents, in this context? I’m going to suggest three actions that we each might consider taking:



First, use whatever land we own. You may have a garden or allotment, where you can grow your own food. That’s wonderful. Or instead of growing food, you might choose to plant flowers that attract bees and other pollinators.



Many of us, living in a city, don’t have that option. Instead, we have purchasing power. We all buy food, so let’s consider how we can buy ethically. Consider this acronym: LOAF. It stands for “Local, Organic, Animal friendly, Fairtrade”.

Food grown locally has the lowest carbon footprint, the least impact on the environment. That may mean literally buying from a local farm, but even if it just means buying British food in season and refusing to buy meat and fruit that has been flown across the world, that all helps.

Organic food is that which has been grown without artificial fertilisers or pesticides. It means that insects, birds and other animals can flourish alongside the crops that are grown for food. It may be more expensive in the short term – and I recognise that not everyone can afford the extra cost of organic food – but the long term cost in terms of the health of our ecosystem is greater.

‘Animal friendly’ means vegetarian or vegan food. Many people are turning to this, either for health reasons or because of the cruelty that many farm animals suffer. There’s also a good argument that farmland is used more efficiently by growing crops that humans eat directly, rather than growing grain to feed animals that become the meat on our plates. I’ll put my hand up here and admit that I do still eat meat, though less than I used to. You may wish to start by just eating vegetarian a couple of days a week.

The F in LOAF stands for Fairtrade. Most of the world’s farmers are at the bottom end of a global supply chain. They earn very little and live in poverty; farm workers in many places are young children or slaves. The Fairtrade system works with local co-operatives and ensures that farmers are paid a decent price for their crop and don’t exploit their workers. On top of that, they are paid a premium that their local community can use as it sees fit, perhaps for building a school or installing a water supply. Another benefit, relevant to what we’re thinking about today, is that Fairtrade farmers are educated in sustainable farming practices that help to reverse the loss of fertile soil. There are other schemes such as Rainforest Alliance that seek to achieve the same aims. So if you can, do look out for those marks on supermarket shelves.


The third way we can respond to this environmental crisis, beyond growing our own food and thinking carefully about what we buy, is to use our vote. We know that climate change will impact all our lives greatly in the coming years. Yet with the General Election coming up in the next month, it is the ‘elephant in the room’ which is not being talked about in political debate.

Election candidates are thinking about the next four weeks to the election, or the five years to the one after that. But urgent action is needed to plan for long term policy over ten, twenty, fifty years, if climate disaster is to be avoided.

One way we can address this is to sign up to the Vote Climate campaign which seeks to put tackling climate change at the top of the agenda. This is a non-party-political movement that asks you to agree to vote for whichever candidate in our constituency is judged by the people behind it to have the most positive responses to questions about environmental policy, even if that’s not the party you usually vote for. Just look for VoteClimate.uk.


Well, this has been a talk about some very practical things: growing food, buying food, using our vote. People of all faiths and none are concerned about the environment and looking to do something about it. But what is our particular focus as Christians? As followers of Jesus, we seek always to work with God. The God who told us, in the words of the prophet Micah, to ”Do Justice, Love Mercy, Walk Humbly with our God”. What matters most, Jesus said, is to love God and to love your neighbour as yourself. That’s not just your neighbour next door but also your global neighbour, the person across the world who grows the food that you buy.

What matters isn’t the detail of what we do – God isn’t going to condemn you if you can’t afford to buy Fairtrade or don’t have a garden to grown your own food – but the intention behind our actions. So if I can summarise, I’m asking you to use whatever land or money God has given you in a wise way. To think about the impact of the food you buy, both the impact on the environment and on the people who grow it. And to take advantage of the upcoming election to get the environment on the agenda, because it’s only at a national and international level that large-scale changes can be made.

Amen.

The magnetic Spirit

Sermon for St Peter’s Bramley 19 May 2024 (Pentecost Sunday)
Readings: Acts 2:1-21; John 15:26-16:15


Aurora over Tiverton Cemetery.
Photo © Lewis Clarke (cc-by-sa/2.0)

Did anyone here see the Northern Lights last weekend? … Unfortunately I didn’t, because I hadn’t been told in advance what to expect on Friday night, and on Saturday it was too cloudy. I’ve also not got the money to go on an expensive cruise to the Arctic Circle to see them. But I’ve seen other people’s photos and they are really spectacular. Ever-changing colours and forms: rays, pillars, sheets of colour growing and fading.  Then after a while, it all fades away and the night is black again.

What has this got to do with our worship today?  Well, I’m going to suggest we can draw some parallels between the Northern Lights and the work of the Holy Spirit.  Bear with me – I don’t want to press the analogy too far, but let’s see where we get.[i]

The night sky has always been a source of wonder and amazement, and used much in religious imagery, not least in the Psalms. At one time people believed – perhaps some still do – that comets, meteors, auroras and other such sights were a direct message from God for a particular time.  In today’s first Bible reading Peter quoted the prophet Joel “I will pour out my Spirit in those days – I will show wonders in the heavens”[ii] We may not make that link as directly now, but we can at least affirm that all the amazing and beautiful sights in the universe are part of God’s creation, and we can thank and praise him for them.

Before I get further into the analogy, let’s be clear what we mean by the Holy Spirit.  Jesus described him, depending on which translation you read, as the Comforter, or Counsellor, or Advocate.  The Greek word actually has a legal meaning, not exactly a lawyer, but rather the wise person who accompanies a witness in court to guide them in the testimony they give.[iii] So the Holy Spirit is there beside us telling us what to do and say to live out the truth that he brings. The Latin word ‘Spiritus’ can also mean ‘courage’ as well as ‘spirit’:  again, the Spirit is one who gives us the courage to be bold in living out the Christian life.

Back to the Northern Lights, or aurora. Who knows what actually causes them?  … A reminder of some basic science. The earth is surrounded by a magnetic field that protects us from the sun’s most harmful rays – one of the conditions God has put in place to make life on earth possible in the first place. The aurora is caused when electrical particles from the sun hit this magnetic field. The displays are usually unpredictable, Not static, but flickering in a way that can’t adequately be captured in words or in a single picture. Sometimes so brilliant that they can be unforgettable, even life-changing. Just like some people’s experience of the Spirit, but I’ll come back to that later.

For a second strand of my thought, another bit of science. The earth’s magnetism is useful in other ways besides protecting us from nasty particles from the sun. Who knows what this is? … A walker’s compass. The magnet in the compass also interacts with the earth’s magnetic field to show us the way when we can’t see the path. It’s very useful if you get lost in the cloud on our northern hills: I recall one occasion when the mist came down and only the compass showed me I was heading south when I thought I was going west. The Holy Spirit is our compass for life: Jesus said that “He will guide you into all truth”[iv].  

How does he guide us into truth? It might sometimes be by a direct word of knowledge, a sudden inspiration or sense that God is telling us to do some particular thing; or just as importantly, not to do it.  At other times, the Spirit’s guidance comes through reading the Bible, or talking and praying with other experienced Christians.

That truth into which the Spirit leads us might take different forms.  It might be a truth about yourself that you hadn’t realised before, or about the gifts that he wants to offer: often the Spirit will give us words of encouragement for ourselves, or for others, to help develop the gifts that He longs for us to use in his service. Or on the other hand, just as a compass sometimes shows us we’re on the wrong path,  it could be the truth of something we’ve been trying to hide from ourselves that we have to acknowledge, as Jesus said, the Spirit will ‘convict the world in regards to sin and righteousness and judgement’[v]

Or the truth into which the Spirit leads us may be a new understanding of the world around us. There are many voices in the world telling us which way to go, but many of them are not of God. The rise of AI will make it even harder to know what is true (but that’s a discussion for another time!) Even within the Christian church, you will hear strongly opposing views on divisive issues.  In what people are now calling a ‘post truth society’, it’s more important than ever to find out what God’s truth is.  So pray that the Spirit will guide you when you think about these things.

Some of you will know Arani Sen who was vicar of our neighbouring parish of Upper Armley until a couple of years ago. In his book about the work of the Holy Spirit[vi], he suggests that the truth into which the Spirit leads us is to bring in the Kingdom of God, not in some distant end-of-time sense, but here and now among the prople around us. To be aware of their needs, to serve them in humility but in the power of the Spirit, so that God’s kingdom can grow among us slowly and surely as we exercise the spiritual gifts we have been given.

Going back to the idea of the compass, it proves that the earth’s magnetic field is still there all around us, even when the spectacular aurora isn’t present, and we can’t see the magnetism directly. In the same way, the ‘everyday’ experiences we may have of the Spirit’s guidance remind us that He is always present, even if we haven’t experienced anything spectacular. Jesus said to his disciple Nicodemus, “The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone who is  born of the Spirit”.[vii]

Just as you don’t need to understand the science to use a compass or to be impressed by the aurora, so you don’t need to study theology to ask Him to direct your life. Many books have been written on the theology of the Holy Spirit and they may help make sense of what you experience.  But going back to our aurora theme, few people board an arctic cruise because they want to study the earth’s magnetic field. No, they leave home and spend their savings go to see the spectacular aurora, the northern lights. Few will be disappointed: some tour companies even offer a money-back guarantee if the lights don’t appear. 

Likewise, just believing in the Holy Spirit is not enough: we must be willing to make our spiritual journey in the hope that we will know his presence. We need to be expectant. As I said at the start, I missed the display of the aurora last weekend because I didn’t know it was coming. And the Holy Spirit will usually only work in those who have been told about him and who want to experience him, although there are exceptions.

When St Paul met some early Christians in Ephesus, they said “we didn’t even know there is a Holy Spirit”, but when Paul explained about him, and prayed for them, they all received the Spirit and some prophesied or prayed in other languages.[viii] Some people still have such a special experience of the Holy Spirit in an unforgettable, life-changing way one or more times during their walk with God. This is sometimes called ‘being baptised in the Spirit’. Others may never have that experience, but that doesn’t mean the Spirit is not at work in them. They know the Spirit in a quieter way. Or both, at different times. 

Next month, Bishop Arun Arora – or is it Aurora? – will be coming to confirm several of our church members. He will pray for each of them by name, that they will receive the Holy Spirit. But it’s always been the belief of the mainstream Christian churches that anyone who has been baptised in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit has in some way already received him. Each person’s story is unique. Not every story is about spiritual fireworks. Rather it is about seeking and responding to God’s good gift, his Holy Spirit. The Spirit gives different gifts and experiences to each of us. [ix]

So, as we draw these various thoughts and images together I hope at least one of them has helped you understand the Holy Spirit better. May I encourage you to take up your spiritual compass: ask God the Holy Spirit to be with you as your advocate, adviser, comforter, encourager and guide. Ask him to lead you into the truth about yourself, your faith and God’s world around. As we have been thinking about the night sky, and the compass that helps us find our way in the world, I’m going to finish with some verses from Psalm 139. Let us pray.

Where can I go then from your spirit?
   Or where can I flee from your presence?
  If I climb up to heaven, you are there;
   if I make the grave my bed, you are there also.
  If I take the wings of the morning
   and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
Even there your hand shall lead me,
   your right hand hold me fast.
  If I say, ‘Surely the darkness will cover me
   and the light around me turn to night,’
  Even darkness is no darkness with you;
      the night is as clear as the day;
   darkness and light to you are both alike.[x]

[i] Lawson, Felicity. Article in Scargill Movement’s Momentum magazine May 2024, p.10

[ii] Joel 2:29-30

[iii] Pawson, David ‘Jesus baptises in one Holy Spirit’. Hodder & Stoughton, 1997, p.62

[iv] John 16:13

[v] John 16:8

[vi] Sen, Arani ‘Holy Spirit Radicals: Pentecost, Acts and Changed Society’. Malcolm Down Publishing 2018.

[vii] John 3:8

[viii] Acts 19:2

[ix] Lawson, ibid.

[x] Psalm 139:7-12, Common Worship Psalter.

Many sheep, one flock

Sermon for St Peter’s Bramley, 21st April 2024.

Text: John 10:11-18

Spring lambs
A.     Introduction

“I am the good shepherd”.  One of Jesus’ seven “I am” sayings, and a suitable reading for this time of year, when the sheep are turned out into their summer pastures and new lambs are gambolling in the fields.

First, let’s set this in context. When Jesus addressed his critics among the leaders of Judaism, he knew that they had learnt their scriptures by heart, and wouldn’t miss any implied reference.  They would know that this whole passage about Jesus being the good shepherd was a reference to chapter 34 of the book of Ezekiel, where God condemns the priests of Israel for failing to look after his people. They would be cast out when the good shepherd came, one who is variously identified either as the Messiah, or as God himself. So Jesus is quite clearly setting himself up for an argument here, by claiming to be both Messiah and God. Also by identifying as the ‘good’ shepherd he is criticising the priests of his day for being bad shepherds. The Greek word used for “good” here – ‘kalos’ – means something like “morally good and perfectly competent”, the priest being by implication immoral and incompetent. 

Sheepfold

B.     A new understanding

But the verse that I want us to focus on today is verse 16: “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.”

We must remember that the sharp division between Jews and everyone else, which still fuels conflict around the world today, is nothing new. In this chapter of John’s gospel, Jesus starts to teach a new understanding, a totally radical idea in his day, that his Father – the one true God, in his role as a shepherd – wants his flock to consist not only of the Jews but also the Gentiles – everyone else. To those brought up on the idea that being ethnically Jewish gave them a privileged place in God’s sheepfold and under his unique protection, that was not just wrong, but blasphemy.

Indeed, the idea of bringing all peoples into one flock can only begin to make sense in the context of the relationship between Jesus, his heavenly father, and the Holy Spirit who conveys their love to the world: in other words, the love of the Trinity. That is a specifically Christian concept, the idea that God’s love for the whole world can through the Holy Spirit be found within his people.

Ripples

C.      Who are the other sheep?

But who are these “other sheep not of this sheepfold”? I suggest that like waves rippling out from a stone thrown into a pond, we can consider several waves of the mission of Jesus and his church to find and bring home these other sheep.

First, in his own lifetime, were the outcasts of his own society, the Jews ostracised for having leprosy, physical disability, children outside marriage or anything else considered to make them unclean. Throughout his ministry he loved, included and healed them.

Secondly, the Samaritans, Israel’s northern neighbours, who long ago had been part of the flock but were now looked on with suspicion at best. Jesus’ own ministry and teaching showed his concern for them.

Thirdly, to the rest of the Greek and Roman world that lay beyond. Jesus’ great commission to his disciples before he ascended to heaven was to go to “Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and all the ends of the earth”. In that order. The book of Acts shows that sequence unfolding.

Finally, through the rest of time, and through the Christian church, the mission of inclusion was to spread through all continents and all sectors of society. There were to be no barriers to which sheep could be drawn into the ever-expanding sheepfold of the church.

Two men on a lifeboat

D.     One flock, one shepherd

That brings me to my next point. “There will be one flock, one shepherd”.  Let me tell you a story – with apologies to anyone who has ever belonged to a Baptist church. This isn’t really aimed at you.

There were two survivors of a shipwreck. As they got talking on their liferaft, one asked the other:

“Do you believe in God?”

            “Why, yes, I do”

“Do you believe in Jesus?”

            “Indeed, I believed he saved us from our sins.”

“Excellent! Pleased to meet you, brother.  And to which church do you belong?”

            “I am a Baptist.”

“Me too!  Strict, Particular or Reformed Baptist?”

            “Oh, Reformed of course, strict Calvinism isn’t for me!”

“I quite agree! But which particular form of reformed Baptist theology do you follow? Continental, Confessional, Sovereign Grace…”

            “I belong to a Baptist Union congregation, part of the Inclusive church network”

“Inclusive church? Heretic! (spitting) The 1689 Baptist Confession is the only true church. I shall not speak to you again!”

Throughout history the Church has had a tendency to split over questions of belief or practice, most of which reflect the glorious cultural diversity of people across the world. But how sad it is, how Jesus’ heart is broken, when sheep of his one flock turn on one another! As Ezekiel put it, “You pushed with flank and shoulder, and butted all the weak animals with your horns until you scattered them far and wide”.

E.     Jesus the cornerstone

That tendency to split has been in the church from the beginning. Perhaps that’s why, when Peter was on trial before the High Priest, to justify his healing miracle in the name of Jesus, the Holy Spirit prompted him to quote from the Psalms the verse about a cornerstone, and apply it to Jesus. There are several hymns and worship songs that pick up on this image, quite a different one from that of sheep, but let’s remind ourselves what it means.

The idea of God laying a foundation, or a cornerstone, or a keystone or capstone, are found throughout the Bible – in the Psalms, Isaiah, and the writings of Peter and Paul. They convey slightly different concepts but  it’s all about unity.  A foundation stops a building subsiding. 

Cornerstone Keystone

A cornerstone makes sure the walls are at right angles. A capstone holds the roof together to stop rain getting in. And a keystone holds together the two sides of an arch that are each unstable by themselves.

So in describing Jesus as one of these special stones, Peter is aware of the dangers of the church subsiding into the soft ground of muddied thinking, or going off in the wrong direction, or failing to hold together as one and becoming several unstable elements that won’t connect with each other. It is only when we recognise in each other the unity we have in Jesus Christ – our good shepherd, the perfect image of God in us – that we can resist that temptation.

F.      Implications for our mission

So what does all this imply for our mission as one part of the Church of Jesus Christ revealing God’s love in Bramley?  Three things:

Firstly, we must recognise that although we meet in different buildings, and worship in different ways, these other sheep are part of the one flock. Our sisters and brothers in the Baptist, Methodist, Catholic, Salvation Army and other congregations are really all in the same sheepfold.

Secondly, when we pray, we pray as one. Not just with our immediate neighbours in Christ but with his whole church throughout the world, each part of which will reflect its own cultural practices and struggle with its own political situation. Although we are a scattered flock, let us never forget our spiritual ancestry as sons of Abraham.  So when we pray, as we must, for peace in Israel, Gaza and that wider region, it is right to ask God to protect the Jewish people in their ancestral homeland that He promised them. But let us not be drawn into taking sides in the ancient hatreds that still perpetuate war. Jew, Muslim or Christian, the people of the middle east, or anywhere else, are those ‘sheep of another fold’ whom Jesus wants to seek and draw to himself.

Finally, and turning back to our own lives, let us pray to have the eyes and heart of Jesus. For it is only if he lives in us by his Holy Spirit, that we will see others around us as the lost sheep that it is our calling to find, heal, and bring back into the fold.

To the Church in Headingley

Sermon for Evensong at St Michael & All Angels, Headingley, 21st April 2024. Text: Revelation 2:12-17

So, the Revelation to John, Chapter two. I suspect there are few preachers who whoop for joy when they find the text for the day is from this last book of the Bible, and I’m not one of them. It is notoriously difficult to understand, since it contains so much symbolism that made sense at the time of writing but is obscure to us two thousand years later. And, we don’t really do this kind of ‘apocalyptic’ writing these days.  When people talk of the apocalypse, they are really thinking of some kind of dystopia, maybe the aftermath of a nuclear war or something. 

But this revelation to John in his island retreat was meant to be an encouragement to him and the Christians he was writing to. The “seven letters to local churches” were intended for Christians facing persecution, to get them to look beyond their immediate troubles and find hope in their commitment to Jesus. Good advice I have received is not to focus in detail on what particular imagery might mean, but to try and understand the big picture of what Jesus was telling his church at that time.

Why does Jesus, through John, address church communities rather than individuals?  Because the strength of Christianity lies in the local church, whether in worship, witness or action.  Alone, we can do little; together, we can achieve much.  Also, because in times of difficulty, there is an increased need to gather together for security and mutual encouragement.  We see that right from the start of the Church, in the upper room on Easter evening, the disciples gathered “with doors locked for fear of the Jews”.   

Each local Christian community – each parish or even congregation within a parish – will have its own feel, its own local traditions, and its own difficulties. As someone who has always appreciated the breadth of traditions within the Church of England, it’s lovely to be part of two very different services in one day. We had our usual Common Worship communion this morning at my local church in Bramley, where we have a very diverse congregation but in particular lots of young families from different cultural and ethnic backgrounds. The mainly contemporary worship songs were led by an older couple on guitar and flute, and a younger couple singing.  Quite a contrast to this more traditional language service with choir and organ, but I find spiritual encouragement in both. In John’s day, I expect it was no different.

Each of these local Christian communities in second-century Asia Minor, then, receives a particular message from Jesus, which in each case both praises and criticises them, before offering a promise for those who stay faithful in the face of persecution.   The praises, the criticisms, and the promises are specific to each place, because Jesus always knows that each church community faces particular challenges and has particular strengths.

Today’s reading is to the Christians of Pergamos – modern day Bergama, a city fifteen miles inland on the Asian side of Turkey. They are praised for holding fast to their faith, even when at least one of them has been killed for it. In the other letters, congregations are praised for their hard work, perseverance, keeping Christ’s word and not denying his name. The emphasis is not about becoming martyrs but being true to the Christian worldview when the world is going in other directions. In our own time, it is increasingly hard to stand up for tolerance, truth and neighbourly love when society is becoming more divided, and false news and lies are all around us.

On the other hand, they are criticised for two things. Firstly for holding to the teaching of Balaam. This refers to the Old Testament book of Numbers, where the prophet Balaam, despite being told by God to bless the people of Israel, also encouraged them to sin in ways that we would still find unacceptable today. And for holding the teaching of the Nicolaitans – we’re not quite sure who they were, but from the context they were doing the same in their day, following the religious and sexual practices of the people around them rather than being distinctive in following Christian ethics.

So the overall message to the church in Pergamos seems to be: keep your faith, even when times are difficult, and be careful not to let the ways of the world compromise the way you practice your faith.

What, I wonder, would Jesus say to the church in Headingley?  I believe he praises you for holding together as a benefice of three quite different churches, each responding to the needs of the age in a different way. St Chad’s is taking a lead on environmental issues, its rewilded churchyard and solar panels an example to other churches across the Diocese of how we might respond to the environmental crisis. Heston at All Hallows has developed a distinctive ministry inclusive of people with all kinds of physical, financial and spiritual needs, and engaging with those of other faiths to find common ground in serving the needs of the parish.

Here at St Michael’s he praises you for engaging in the cultural and civic life of Headingley, showing a commitment to being inclusive, and worshipping him in words and music that seek to express the spiritual life within us, whether in contemporary or traditional style.   

But for what would he criticise you? To quote the words of the confession that we said earlier, what have you as a community, left undone that you ought to have done, or done that you ought not to have done?  I do not live among you, and it’s not for me to judge you. But I leave you to ponder that.

The praises, in any event, are more important than the criticisms. As the Psalmist said, “God’s anger lasts only a moment, but his favour lasts a lifetime”. So at the end of each of the letters is a promise.  The promises are expressed symbolically and addressed this time to individuals rather than congregations. The Christians in Pergamos are promised the ‘hidden manna’, probably the reason this reading is paired with the one from Exodus. The manna, the miraculous bread from heaven, has always been understood by the Church to be not only a sign of God’s provision to those in need, but also a foretaste of the eternal life that comes through Jesus to those who believe in him: Jesus who called himself the ‘bread of life’.

The other promise is of a white stone with a secret name. What that means is less obvious, but it may be a way of saying that we need to treasure our deepest faith, our most intimate understanding of God, in the secrecy of our own heart. That way, whatever life may throw at us, our faith in Christ is kept secure.

Other symbolic promises in this set of letters include “eating from the tree of life”, “not being hurt by the second death”, “the right to sit with Jesus on his throne”, “being dressed in white”; and being given “authority over the nations”.  One of the threads running through the New Testament is that our rewards for living faithfully in this life will be given us in the next.  It is of course impossible to really know what such existence will be like, but the Revelation reminds us to look beyond the troubles of this life and stick with Jesus along the way. 

So if I can sum up what we can learn from this small part of the last book of the Bible, it is this: that as part of the churches in Headingley, as well as the wider Church of England and indeed the Church of Christ throughout the world, we must recognise the tension between engaging with the world and retaining our distinctiveness as Christians. We can celebrate the diversity within and between our congregations, while seeking to find the specific ministry that each local church has to its parish. And that while there will no doubt be aspects of our church life that could be criticised, much more important is to hear the words of Jesus praising us for when we get it right, for by holding to our faith in him and seeking to respond to his call, we know we shall inherit that eternal life that only He can give.