Matthew – The Raynville Rambler

The Two Sons

A sermon for the parish of Stanningley and Swinnow, Sunday 1 October 2023
Text: Matthew 21:23-32
The context of this sermon preached in two churches was the parish has just gone into vacancy, i.e. their vicar has left and they await a replacement

Today as I turned over a calendar to the page for October, I found a beautiful photo of a Scottish woodland in all its autumn splendour. A reminder, if we needed it after this week’s storm, that autumn is upon us. A season of change, and also a season of preparation. What are you preparing for, I wonder? Perhaps already shopping early for Christmas, or booking a holiday for next year, or looking forwards to a family wedding in the spring? As a church, no doubt you’re already planning your Advent and Christmas activities.

Our Gospel reading today refers to John the Baptist. I have a particular fascination with John, because he’s my patron saint – my birthday is 24^th June, John’s feast day in the church. John’s catch phrase seems to have been ‘Prepare the Way for the Lord’. When he baptised people, it wasn’t just as a sign of their repentance for sin, it was also a sign that they were being cleansed as a preparation for a special event, the coming of the Messiah, which would be a great upheaval to their whole way of life.

This was something that challenged the Jewish leaders – the ‘chief priests and elders’ referred to in the Gospel were the Sanhedrin, the religious court. They knew that they hadn’t given permission to John to baptise people, and neither had they given permission to Jesus to heal people, or for that matter to drive the moneychangers out of the Temple, which is what brought them to challenge him on this occasion. Jesus cleverly asks them their opinion of John, because if they weren’t prepared to admit that John was a true prophet, then they clearly wouldn’t accept Jesus either.

If John’s catchphrase was ‘Prepare the Way for the Lord’ then one of Jesus’ catchphrases was certainly ‘the Kingdom of God is among you’. After Jesus refuses to answer the Sanhedrin’s question, he goes on to tell three short parables to make his point about the Kingdom of God. We just heard the first of them today: A man had two sons; he went to the first and said, “Son, go and work in the vineyard today.” He answered, “I will not”; but later he changed his mind and went. The father went to the second and said the same; and he answered, “I go, sir”; but he did not go.

The Parable of the Father and His Two Sons in the Vineyard by Georg Pencz, C16
(c) Creative Commons

As you may know already, the vineyard was a widely used image to represent the Jewish people, and its owner is obviously God. Jesus was clearly saying that there are some people who made no claim to being obedient servants of God, yet who actually do his will, while others claim to be obeying God, but don’t in practice. The men from the Sanhedrin, and everyone who was listening to this conversation, would see that he was having a go at them, the religious leaders, for being like the second son and not practising what they preach. And they’re forced to admit this by saying that the son who actually worked in the vineyard did what his father wanted, rather than the one who promised and didn’t deliver.

When Jesus gives this interpretation, though, he adds insult to injury by saying those who are really doing God’s will are ‘tax collectors and prostitutes’ – whose lives are clearly contravening Jewish religious laws.

Recent scandals in Christian churches of all denominations have certainly given the lie to any idea that religious leaders are necessarily holier than the rest of us. But beyond that, what does this short parable have to say to us today?

Jesus’ reason for challenging the Sanhedrin leaders on this point was, I think, to make a contrast between their view and his own on where true religion is to be found. These were men whose whole lives were bound up in the activities of the Temple and the religious and political life of Jerusalem. They probably rarely left the city. To them, keeping Temple worship going according to tradition was the most important way of showing their obedience to God.

By contrast, John the Baptist exercised his whole ministry in the desert and in the Jordan valley where he baptised. Jesus had spent most of his ministry in the fishing villages on lake Galilee and farming communities in the hills, as well as in the crowded streets of Jerusalem. Their disciples were ordinary folk, and among these ordinary folk Jesus could see the seeds of the Kingdom that John had sown already taking root and growing. People who had taken John’s message of repentance and preparation to heart, were listening to Jesus’ teaching, and putting it into practice.

These new disciples, these sons of the vineyard owner who were finally doing what God wanted, are summarised provocatively as ‘tax collectors and prostitutes’. But Jesus also ministered to fishermen, shepherds, disabled people and a divorcee shunned by society. I suggest that we can take these taxmen and sex workers as representing two groups in society – those who are engaged in the business of the world with no time for the church, and those on the margins of society, unable to participate in the regular economy and forced to live in unconventional ways. What you find, now as well as then, is that the overworked people often have an unsatisfied hunger for meaning in their lives, which only Jesus can address. And that people on the margins of society are often the kindest and most generous people, their ears attuned to God’s Spirit.

Jesus, unlike the religious leaders, recognised that out in the streets and villages, not in the Temple, was where God was actually at work changing people’s hearts and lives.

Therefore, I can see that there are two challenges in this passage that are as relevant today as they were in Jerusalem two thousand years ago.

The first is a personal challenge to each and every one of us, including myself. I’m assuming (but please forgive me if I’m wrong) that everyone here was either baptised or confirmed as a teenager or adult. In which case, we have all made some promises about obeying God. When I was confirmed in 1981 it was three short phrases: I turn to Christ, I repent of my sins, I renounce evil. In the current service book, it’s a bit wordier with two sets of promises: I reject the devil and all rebellion against God, I renounce the deceit and corruption of evil, I repent of the sins that separate us from God and neighbour; and then: I turn to Christ, I submit to Christ, I come to Christ. As a lay minister I had to make further promises to be obedient to the Lord Bishop of Leeds, and to be ‘a worker for Christ for the good of his Church and for the spiritual welfare of all people’.

Having made these promises before the congregation, and maybe before the Bishop, we are like the first son who promised to go and work in the vineyard. The question is, do we? In my everyday life, do I actually and actively turn to Christ to direct the way that I should live, and submit to him in doing what I know he wants of me? That’s a question for each of us to answer for ourselves.

The second challenge is to the Church as a whole and to each local congregation. And it’s particularly relevant to you here at St Thomas’s and Christ the Saviour, as you go into the vacancy following Richard’s departure. A vacancy in the benefice, with key people missing, can all too easily become a time of doing as little as possible, of keeping things going as they are, of focussing on church activities.

Instead, I would encourage you to see this as a time of preparation. Just as autumn is a time of preparing for the new year ahead, just as people went out into the desert to hear John the Baptist and his message of preparing for the coming Messiah, and as Jesus himself after being baptised spent forty days in the desert preparing for his ministry on the margins of society, so this time in the wilderness of a vacancy can be a time to prepare for a new leader and for a new outpouring of God’s Spirit in this parish. This is a time to come together as a community of lay people, as John’s disciples were, and re-commit yourselves to hearing God’s call to minister to the ordinary folk of this area.

You will be preparing a parish profile for the Bishop to find a suitable minister, and that will include both your current activities and future aspirations. I can see from your website and Facebook group that you are not starting from scratch here. You are already engaging with the community through the Mums & Tots and Chat & Craft groups, fellowship lunches, the Friends of St Thomas’s and the various uniformed organisations. All that, no doubt, will go into the profile. But what else might be possible? Where, figuratively speaking, are the tax collectors and prostitutes in Stanningley: the busy people and the people on the margins in our parish, who may not yet have heard of the Kingdom of God but who will enter it gladly and obediently when they do?

I hope I will see you again during this vacancy, and pray that it will not be long before God calls the right woman or man to serve as your parish priest. But now, and then, you will not be acting alone. It is the work, not of the Church but of Christ himself. I will finish with a quote from the last verse of the New Testament reading for today. Philippians 2:13. ‘For it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.’ The ideal son is the one who both promises to work in God’s vineyard, and with his Father’s help, does so. Amen.

Will you come and follow me?

Sermon for St Peter’s Bramley, 17 September 2023.
Preceded by the sketch ‘The Call’ from John Bell’s ‘Jesus and Peter’.
Bible reading: Matthew 4:18-22

So there they were, Peter and his brother Andrew, just standing in their fishing boats a little way out in the lake, casting a net to catch fish. All in a day’s work. And along comes Jesus and tells them to follow him, which they do. So do James and John, another fishing crew, a few minutes later. Can it really be that simple?

It seems more likely from the other versions of this story in the Bible that these fishermen had been among the crowds who heard John the Baptist and Jesus himself teaching, before this encounter. That might be you – you’ve heard about Jesus, but never really stopped to think how he might be speaking to you personally. The sketch we’ve just seen explores the sort of conversation that may have occurred on the day, when Jesus challenged them what their response would be to what they had heard.

I want to explore briefly three of the questions that Peter asks, because they’re the sort of questions that lots of people ask when they’ve heard something about Jesus but don’t really know how to respond, whether to follow him or not.

Q1 – with map and GPS unit

Firstly he asks “Where are you going?” Well, how do you find out where you’re going, or more often, how to get where you know you ought to be going? I’m of the older generation and I still like to use a paper map – this one helps me find my way around the Leeds area. But I also have a GPS unit for my bike, that tells me exactly where I am and which direction to head next. If you have a new car you may have a Satnav system built in that does the same job. But you need to know your destination first. Jesus couldn’t just give Peter a postcode, because for the next three years they were going to be wandering round what we now call Israel and Syria all the time, going wherever God called them and the need was greatest.

When Jesus said to Peter in the sketch that he wasn’t giving an answer because “you might not like it”, he meant that it wouldn’t always be easy. Being a Christian does have its challenges and God often calls people to move to a new place, perhaps more than once, to serve him. It’s a life-changing call, but those who accept it find that actually, we do like it very much!

Q2 – with Bible

The second question is “Just tell me what I need”. Jesus’ answer is quite clear – “just bring yourself”. Of course Peter’s friends came with him, but the point is he needed no special preparation. Not everyone who starts on the Christian life needs to literally leave behind their only means of making a living as Peter did, but what Jesus does ask us all is to bring the gifts and skills he has already given us. Jesus may have seen in Peter and his colleagues a group of young men who were hard-working and courageous, but also patient and prepared to take advice and take risks (as Mark’s version of this story shows us). Those were the qualities, the ‘transferable skills’ to use a modern phrase, that they would need as they went around with Jesus. You might well ask yourself, what skills has God already given me that I could use for him? The other point to make is that in starting afresh following Jesus, we can also leave behind the things that trouble us – you may have heard the phrase ‘born again’, but that basically means putting behind you all the things you are guilty or troubled about in your past life, and starting over with a clean slate. The only other thing you will need, of course, is the Bible – used wisely, it’s still the best guide to how to put those skills to good use.

Q3 – with mirror

At the end of the sketch, Peter asks “Do you want me to end up like you?” it sounds critical, and maybe it is. Let’s be honest, the Church often doesn’t have a good reputation. People have an image of boring old people singing ancient hymns and talking fancy language. Or of someone with a collection plate asking for money as soon as they go in the door. They think they will be judged by their appearance or accent if they go to church. Mostly of course that’s very far from the truth. I hope you got a good welcome today and you’re finding this service easy to follow, and dare I say it, even fun.

But beneath a question like this is a deeper one, that really means “I hope I won’t have to change”. And the answer to that is in fact, “yes, you will” – but “you will change for the better”. (mirror) I’m looking now at someone who has changed a lot since he first heard about Jesus forty years ago, but who knows he still has a long way to go to become like Jesus. The journey of following Jesus will change us into better people, if we really let him into our lives. Can you see a better person in here?

These questions, then: “Where are you going?” “Just tell me what I need” “Do you want me to end up like you?”– they are real questions that real people ask. To rephrase them slightly, they are the anxieties we all have to address whenever we face a new step in life: “What’s the goal?” “What do I need to achieve it”? and “How will it change me?”

Maybe Grace’s parents have been asking themselves those questions since her birth. They are honest questions, that deserve honest answers, and sometimes the answers aren’t simple, quick or easy. We may not understand the whole of the answers, or even the questions, until we’ve been on the road with Jesus for a long time. But they are important questions to ask at the start, if we are to understand what it is that Jesus calls us to. Also, someone who asks questions is ready to learn, and those are the followers Jesus wants.

One question that Peter didn’t ask is “Where do I start from?” The answer was obvious: from this beach, today. Jesus doesn’t answer Peter’s question about becoming like him, instead he just asks for the last time, “are you coming with me?” Because that’s the only way we can change. Life with Jesus can start for you, here and now, as you are.

Well, it’s time for me to go now….. Are you coming?

The Gifts and the Giver

A sermon for Epiphany, 8 January 2022 at St Peter’s, Bramley

Text: Matthew 2:1-12 (The gifts of the magi)

What did you get for Christmas? People often ask us that at this time of year. The gifts that our family and friends give us vary so much, don’t they? Let’s see what I was given this year:

Penguin cycling shirt railway book dates

Starting with the trivial – this little penguin Christmas tree decoration. Scott, I’ve called him: Scott of the Antarctic. Then there are the useful presents: a thick, close-fitting cycling top for the cold weather. The specialist hobby things: a book with the technical details of all the trains in Britain. And the tasty treats: for the last few years one of my sisters has given us a home-made hamper of gluten-free goodies to share.

Does your family have a tradition of how and when gifts are given, perhaps in what order? When my sisters and I were children, the rule was that the youngest started giving their presents out first, followed by the next youngest, and parents or grandparents last of all. That was a useful life lesson: the emphasis was on giving rather than receiving: as Jesus said, “it is more blessed to give than to receive”. We can’t expect to receive gifts unless we are also prepared to give them. I’ll come back to that idea later.

One of the origins of this tradition of giving Christmas gifts is the Epiphany story of the magi from the east and their gifts. What were the three things they gave? (call out!) I don’t think I would have known about frankincense or myrrh without this story, would you? Let’s look at what their gifts to Jesus might say about what we can give to him now.

Gold has the same meaning now as always: something valuable, something worth keeping, something special. If someone is ‘worth their weight in gold’ it means their friendship is too valuable to measure. But in the days before banks, it was also a practical way of keeping your treasure with you when you travelled. The magi gave away something very costly, and Mary and Joseph may well have needed to spend the gold during their years of exile in Egypt.

So, if you or I have possessions, can we offer them to Jesus? I’m not just talking about giving money to the church: it might be supporting a Christian charity, opening our homes for church meetings, using a car to offer a lift, lending tools to a neighbour, and so on. That is your gift to the Church’s resources.

The second gift was incense. It had a very practical use as an early form of air freshener – can you imagine how smelly life was in those days, when taking a bath was rare, deodorants and toilets unknown and houses were shared with animals? But incense was also used in the Temple, as it still is in some churches today. The smoke from the incense symbolises prayer rising to God. More than that, the gift of incense to Jesus was a symbol of him becoming our high priest, praying to God the Father for us in heaven.

So, I suggest that we might think of it representing our ministry in the church. That might be helping to lead worship, but there is so much more to Christian service than that. It might equally well be helping with our church’s activity groups, being on the tea rota, doing odd jobs to help the Churchwardens look after the building, offering fundraising skills, or helping with any work we do in the community. It might be praying – for some people, praying for the Church’s work is their unseen but important gift to the Church’s ministry.

And then there was myrrh, the oddest gift of all. It was a spice used in embalming a body after death. Given by the Magi it was a symbol in particular of Jesus’ death on the cross in which he sacrificed his own life to reconcile us to God. His sacrifice was unrepeatable, but the myrrh reminds us that Jesus calls us all to live a selfless life.

We might therefore see it as the gift of ourselves in putting others’ needs before our own. Again, there are many ways of doing that. It might be a pastoral ministry within the church, volunteering with one of the local community groups, welcoming a refugee, or helping with the care of children or elderly people within your own extended family.

It may be that you think you haven’t got money to spare, or a particular talent to use within the church, or spare time to offer as a volunteer. If so, just remember that the Shepherds had already come to Jesus with nothing at all to give him. What mattered most was that they, and the magi after them, came to kneel at the manger and worship Jesus.

I’ll come back to that point I made earlier about it being more blessed to give than to receive. There’s one exception to that: when God is the giver and we are the recipients. God, let us not forget, is the greatest giver. It’s in God’s very nature to give. He is the giver of life itself. The giver of his living word made flesh to reconcile us to himself, and the giver of the Holy Spirit, who himself gives us the gifts that we need to serve him in the world. A verse from the Old Testament often used in church worship is this: “all things come from you [O Lord], and of your own have we given you.”

So, at the start of this new year when we are still thankful for the Christmas presents we received, we can think about what we bring as a gift to Jesus. Starting with our worship, for when we come to worship, we open ourselves to the greatest gift of all. As Jesus also said, “give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap; for the measure you give will be the measure you get back.”

Then we will be able to ask what we can give to Jesus in return for all that he has given us. What can I spare of my money for the work of the church? How can I use the things that I have for the benefit of others? What talents and skills do I have that will be of use in the ministry of the Church? And how can I best give my time to help others?

I will finish with that lovely verse of a well known carol: ‘What can I give him, poor as I am? If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb. If I were a wise man, I would do my part, yet what I can I give him – give my heart’.

wooden heart

Another of the gifts that I got at Christmas, a ‘little something extra’ from Linda. It’s this heart, hand carved from olive wood grown in Bethlehem. It now sits on the windowsill of my study as a symbol of her love for me, but also a symbol of the love that Jesus, the Babe of Bethlehem, has for all of us. May his love, and his gifts, be with you always. Amen.

Lord, you give the great commission

Today’s hymn from Sing Praise is “Lord, you give the great commission” by Jeffery Rowthorn to a tune by the great Edwardian composer C H H Parry. Its theme follows on from Sunday’s discussion of ordination and yesterday’s of the “enduing” or bestowing of gifts by the Holy Spirit, as each verse ends with the lines “With the Spirit’s gifts empower us for the work of ministry”.

The rest of the words of the five verses are based on various recorded sayings of Jesus in the gospels, mainly the ‘Great Commission’ to teach and baptise all nations in the final paragraph of Matthew’s gospel (although some commentators think this is Matthew’s understanding of what Jesus might have said, rather than a record of an actual event). It also references the Last Supper in the third verse, and the exhortations to forgive others and be generous in our giving in the fourth.

The words that are rhymed with “ministry” in the second half of each verse give a good summary of the Church’s mission: integrity, community, liberty, society, eternity. Whether consciously or not, they reflect the Anglican ‘five marks of mission’ which in abbreviated form are: to proclaim the Good News (one might say of eternity); to teach, baptise and nurture new believers (into the liberty of the children of God, as Paul puts it); to respond to human need by loving service (forming community); to transform unjust structures of society; and to strive to safeguard the integrity of creation.

The last verse returns to the very end of Matthew: “I am with you always, to the end of the age”. Jesus – if indeed he did say this – must have been aware that as his physical presence was about to depart for the last time, the growth of the Church and its continuing mission would depend on his disciples and their successors who had not seen him having faith in his continued unseen presence and through the work of the Holy Spirit.

Palm Sunday (5 April 2020)

A Bible reflection for Palm Sunday (5 April 2020)

By Stephen Craven, Reader (Licensed Lay Minister) in the parish of Bramley, Leeds.

Introduction

Since all churches including ours (St Margaret’s Bramley) are closed at present, there will an online service offered by the Rector at 10.15 this morning on our Facebook page. If we had been having a service in church it would have been my turn to preach, so here is my reflection on the set readings for the day.

The Anglican liturgy for Palm Sunday is different from the standard pattern. Instead of the usual short Bible readings, there are no fewer than six readings set for today, the last and longest of which is the full story of the passion (suffering) of Jesus according to Matthew. I have chosen to comment on four of these.

Practical tip: for the Bible readings, right-click and select ‘open in new tab’ so that you don’t lose your place on this page.

The first Bible reading

Matthew 21:1-11 Jesus enters Jerusalem

Reflection

At a time when we are all socially isolated, reading of the crowds pressing around Jesus seems strange, and their cheerful shouts of praise may sound discordant or even disrespectful when we know how many people are suffering. We are beginning to get used to being on our own, or just with a few family members, most of the time.

Yet people are still finding ways of doing things together, of staying positive. Online meetings, virtual parties, swapping jokes (did you see the announcement on 1 April that the Bishop of London will be blasted into space to found the Diocese of the Moon and Mars?). ‘Dates’ where we chat by phone over our individual cups of coffee or glasses of wine.

And then there’s the 8pm clapping for the NHS – coming together to honour the workers putting their own lives at risk, hailed as heroes and heroines by the rest of society. That’s much like what the crown on Palm Sunday were doing, coming together to honour Jesus as their hero, the one who would save them (Hosanna means ‘save us!’). But save them from what? From the Romans? From Herod? A very different answer would emerge in the course of the next week.

The second Bible reading

Psalm 31:9-16

Reflection

Many of the Psalms are songs of lament, an honest crying out to God of the things that are wrong in our lives or in society, and the pains we suffer (physically or mentally). Several of the verses of this psalm have echoes of how people are suffering with the Coronavirus: “Have mercy on me, Lord, for I am in trouble”… “my strength fails me because of my affliction, and my bones are consumed” … “when my neighbours see me in the street they flee from me. I am forgotten like one that is dead, out of mind” … “fear is on every side”. Nothing can shock God, so in reading this psalm and responding to it, be honest with him about how you are feeling.

But like many of these psalms of lament, Psalm 31 ends in hope. “Blessed be the Lord, for he has wondrously shown his love to me when I was beset as a city under siege … be strong, and let your heart take courage, all you who wait for the Lord.” (verses 21, 24).

The third Bible reading

Philippians 2:5-11

Reflection

In the early centuries of Christianity, men argued constantly about who Jesus actually was – truly God and not fully man, or truly man and not fully God, or somehow both fully God and man? Most branches of Christianity teach the last of these: Jesus was truly divine, yet in every way a real human being: body, mind and spirit. When he suffered, he really suffered. Did this – becoming a suffering soul in a suffering body, dying on the cross – demean him, somehow compromise his pure divine nature?

Paul, writing to the Christians at Philippi, gives a resounding ‘no’ as his answer. Precisely because Christ suffered for us as the man Jesus, experiencing all the pain that we can experience (while at the same time demonstrating how we should live), and thereby redeeming us from the sin that had separated us from God, he was given the highest honours in Heaven, and deserves the highest praise from us. Part of the way that we can honour Jesus’ sacrifice for us is by being servants of others, as many are doing already at this time of suffering.

The fourth Bible reading (the Passion Gospel)

Matthew 26:14-27:54

Reflection

What does Holy Week have in common with the present lockdown of society? For a start, the rapidly changing events. No two days are alike. Three weeks ago, I was working as normal in a city centre office, drinking with friends in pubs in the evening. Then came word that we should be socialising less, keeping our distance from people. The Diocese (my employer) asked us to work from home at least three days a week. That was new for me, setting up my work laptop to log in to the office computer network. By the end of the week, we were told to take home whatever we needed as the office would be closing and home working has become semi-permanent. I’ve had to learn video conferencing, scanning papers at home to upload remotely to the office.

The following weekend, like many people, Linda and I met friends for the final time in a pub on Friday evening, and on Saturday we drove out into the countryside – parking on a minor road, walking (mostly) quiet paths. Two days later the Government told us even that was not permitted, and we’re now only allowed a short daily walk from home. Phone calls (maybe with video) are the only way of keeping in touch, and for those who live alone and don’t have the internet, it’s even worse (my mother is at least seeing my sister who comes to sit two metres away from her in the garden to chat). On Friday this week it was confirmed I will be ‘furloughed’ from next Wednesday – ‘laid aside’ for at least three weeks, albeit on full pay thanks to the Government’s 80% grant scheme. Compared with those whose small business have collapsed, I’m one of the lucky ones.

Jesus understands. In the course of one week he went from being at the centre of attention, in control of his activities, to being accused of blasphemy, abandoned by his closest friends, losing his freedom of movement, whipped and crucified with only a few people present. The ‘Via Dolorosa’ or way of suffering, marked in many churches by walking round the Stations of the Cross as Jesus walked to Calvary, must have been a time of terrible loneliness. Even if there was a crowd watching, this time it was hostile. Some people say it was the same people who praised Jesus on Palm Sunday who called for his crucifixion on Thursday. Others say the crowds were different. But clearly the popular mood changed rapidly. Things had turned ugly. Judas, one of the inner circle of disciples, betrayed him. Pilate, though believing Jesus to be innocent, symbolically washed his hands of responsibility (oh, how topical!) and handed him over to be killed.

There is also the wild range of emotions. What have you experienced in the last few weeks? Bereavement? Confrontation? Fear? Sleeplessness? Confusion? Loneliness? Again, Jesus understands. He went through all these emotions himself – bereavement when his friend Lazarus died shortly before these events (famously, “Jesus wept”), confrontation in the Temple, the blood-sweating fear of Gethsemane, sleeplessness while his exhausted disciples dozed, the confusion of his betrayal and arrest, the loneliness of the trial and Cross.

But there are signs of hope, both then and now. Throughout Holy Week there were exceptions to the popular mood. His mother who followed him to the end. The anonymous owner of the Upper Room who lent it for the Last Supper. Veronica who wiped his face. The penitent thief. The centurion who acknowledged him, after his death, to be the Son of God. Joseph of Arimathea who gave him a decent burial. These are the unsung heroes of the Bible story. Likewise, in our own time we see signs of hope, whether it’s the solidarity of all applauding the NHS together, community initiatives to support isolated neighbours, donating to or volunteering with foodbanks. Those who do these things are the sometimes unsung heroes of our own time.

In the last week I have also started to hear suggestions for this to be the wake-up call for a whole new way of living. Maybe in the future we can commit to making permanent the temporary changes that have been forced upon us: less travel, less unnecessary shopping, more time calling friends, more exercise outdoors, a new engagement with God and nature, a new sense of belonging together as one common humanity. These, of course, are all parts of what it is to live the Christian life anyway.

So we can know that Jesus understands the rapid pace of change and emotional distress that we experiencing, but also asks us to be like those who face up to these by continuing to serve others, being heroic in any small way we can, and being open to more permanent change. For Christians who know the ending of the Holy Week story on Easter Day, there is the assurance of resurrection, which is much more than Jesus coming back to life, it is the start of a permanent change, a completely different form of life – life eternal. More on that next week!

Finally, may I wish you a blessed Holy Week and joyous Easter.

Stephen

Bible texts accessed through the Oremus Bible Browser are from The New Revised Standard Version, copyright 1989, 1995 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

The Bible in a Year – 4 November

If this is your first viewing, please see my Introduction before reading this.

4 November. Matthew chapters 27-28

These last two chapters of the Gospel cover Matthew’s version of the most important events of the whole Bible – the death and resurrection of Jesus. What can I add to the volumes that have been written about those world-changing three days?

Let’s consider the attitudes towards Jesus of the people who encountered him. Firstly those who responded negatively. Firstly, the “chief priests and elders” (27:20) who whipped up the emotions of the crowd to have Jesus crucified, even though Pilate was minded to release him. Those same priests and elders panicked, if Matthew’s account is to be believed, on Easter day when the report of the resurrection reached them: like most politicians whose judgements have been proved wrong, rather than admitting their mistake they turned to bribery and false reporting in order to suppress the truth (28:12-14).

Then there were the soldiers who mocked him, made him (and Simon) carry the cross, gambled for his clothing as he hung dying. And the two bandits hung alongside him who, along with the soldiers and passers-by, taunted him to perform one last miracle by coning down from the cross – just as he had been tempted by the Devil in the desert to perform miracles for the sake of his own health and popularity. And of course the crowd, who would go along with whatever the religious leaders said.

Two key players changed their mind in all the confusion of the proceedings of Holy Week: Pilate who seemed to believe Jesus was innocent, but was not prepared to risk his own reputation in Rome by letting a riot begin because of it; and Judas, who repented of his betrayal. But for him it was too late.

But among other observers were individuals who bucked the trend, who had the courage to ignore popular opinion and believe that Jesus was worth respect, who had at least the common humanity which cannot ignore another person in distress. These few made all the difference.

There was Pilate’s wife, who because of a presumably God-given dream (what was it, we wonder?) was convinced of Jesus’ innocence (27:19) – but her word was not enough to turn Pontius from his course. There were the unnamed bystanders who twice offered him wine (presumably as a feeble attempt at anaesthetising his pain – which he refused). There were his own mother, the mothers of some of his disciples and “many other women” who endured the mental torment of watching him and the two thieves die in agony, because they believed in Jesus to the end. Hats off to Joseph of Arimathea: he had the courage to believe in Jesus’ right to a respectful burial, to ask for his bloodied body, and to risk ritual uncleanness by handling it. The two Marys (Magdalen, and the mother of James and Joseph) also were willing to start embalming the body, and to come back at first light after the Sabbath to continue despite knowing the sealed tombstone would be almost impossible to move. If they had not done so, would they have witnessed the most incredible sight ever?

Maybe these people had been in the crowd when Jesus told the parable of the Good Samaritan, and remembered that showing mercy to someone in great difficulty (irrespective of their gender, ethnicity, beliefs or what got them into difficulty) is a sign of love for God as well a neighbour. Maybe they were also there when he said “blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy”. For it is easy – I will admit to it myself – to walk past when someone is in trouble, especially if they are not like us. It is not difficult to agree with the principle that we are all brothers and sisters in this life and we need to help each other. But it is far more difficult to put it into practice. Thank God for those who do, and especially for those who helped Jesus and showed him respect in both life and death.

The Bible in a Year – 3 November.

If this is your first viewing, please see my Introduction before reading this.

3 November. Matthew chapters 25-26

Jesus continues his Holy Week teaching on the end times with a set of three parables – the ten virgins (or bridesmaids), the three servants entrusted with money (‘parable of the talents’) and the sheep and goats. These all give some indication of the sort of lives that we should lead, knowing that Jesus will someday return in judgement: keeping alert, using wisely whatever possessions and talents (for this is where the English word comes from) we have, and treating everyone in need (but especially fellow believers) as if they were Christ himself.

Chapter 26 is Matthew’s account of Holy (or Maundy) Thursday, in which Jesus is betrayed by his disciple Judas, shares the Passover with his disciples for the last time with the words that are said over the bread and wine at every celebration of the Mass, prays in the Garden of Gethsemane, is arrested and denied by Peter. In this one chapter we see his three years of ministry apparently coming to an end. For those of us who know the rest story already it may not seem so bad, for we know what his death would achieve. He had tried to prepare the disciples for this moment, telling the repeatedly that “the Son of Man must be killed and rise again on the third day”. Yet it is understandable that when the time comes, all they can see are soldiers with swords and clubs, arresting an unarmed man who would not strike back, and were too afraid to follow. They all run away (v.56).

All, that is, except Peter, who to his credit sits by the fire in the courtyard in the darkness, staying within sight or at least hearing of what is going on. Jesus may be about to die, but he wants at least to observe it for himself (v.58), just as he was present at the Transfiguration. Maybe he thought that Moses and Elijah would appear again at the last minute to save Jesus. But they did not – Jesus had already realised that calling on “legions of angels” (v.53) would not help, when what was required was his own free acceptance of ultimate suffering.

What Peter feared in that moment was presumably being arrested, tried and tortured like Jesus. But those who accused him of being “one of them”, “being with Jesus” were not soldiers or Temple officials, they were mere servants. Would they have felt able to turn him to the priests? Would their testimony have been accepted anyway? So was Peter, in denying Jesus, acting in self-preservation in order to save his life from real danger, or was he just too nervous to give his testimony? It would all change at Pentecost.

Peter and Judas both knew they had betrayed Jesus, and both of them soon deeply regretted it. The difference was that whereas Judas went and hanged himself, Peter stuck around to the end, and was rewarded by being pardoned by Jesus after the Resurrection. If you can cling on to hope in God even in the worst of times, you will not be disappointed.

The Bible in a Year – 2 November

If this is your first viewing, please see my Introduction before reading this.

2 November. Matthew chapters 23-24

Much of the teaching of Jesus about the Kingdom has, until this point, been positive: stories and examples of how living his way, loving one’s neighbour and being generous, will bring peace and joy. But now it suddenly takes a much darker tone.

Following the conflict with the Pharisees and Sadducees in chapter 21 (yesterday’s reading) Jesus knows that his time is short and they are set against him. So he drops all restraint and, in chapter 23, lets loose a series of devastating public criticisms, labelling them hypocrites, fools, blind guides and “whitewashed tombs” (clean looking on the outside but with untouchable death within). Their teaching was supposed to draw people into the covenant relationship with God, but instead only drew them into their own brand of legalism.

Following that confrontation, Jesus leaves the Temple – surely in a mood of anger, not peace – and starts telling his disciples just how bad the early years of the Church would be for them. Not only would there be ongoing persecution right from the start, but wars, revolutions, famines and earthquakes – all the events that make societies unstable and life uncertain. Before long these would usher in the “last day”. Jesus describes this in apocalyptic terms of darkness, fear, fleeing quickly with few possessions, when “the desolating sacrilege stands in the holy place” (24:15). This latter reference is usually taken to refer to the destruction of the Temple in AD70, a generation after the Resurrection of Jesus, when the Jewish people would be forced out of the Promised Land for a second time, for what would turn out to be nearly two thousand years. Christians, though, have always had a parallel understanding of an eventual “second coming”, or “rapture”, when the followers of Christ would be saved from the final destruction that will come upon humanity. This is too big a subject to explore in depth here.

The one glimmer of light in all this is that during this time of persecution and war, “this good news of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the world, as a testimony to all the nations” (24:14). So the purpose of the church is not to being about peace on earth, which we will never have more than fleetingly among what is generally a violent society and a dangerous world, but to proclaim the Kingdom of Heaven as the good news that there is an alternative to earthly suffering and certain death, and Jesus is the key to it. No wonder the refrain of Advent is “Come quickly, Lord Jesus!”

The Bible in a Year – 1 November

If this is your first viewing, please see my Introduction before reading this.

1 November. Matthew chapters 21-22

Today’s reading starts with the “triumphal entry”, as Jesus rides into Jerusalem on a donkey, followed by overturning the tables of the moneychangers. In the Christian calendar this is usually read at the start of Holy Week, leading up to Easter. That last week or so of Jesus’ life was marked by increasing conflict with the Temple authorities. Many of the parables in these chapters were told in the Temple, making reference to its activities, and were (as Matthew explicitly says) told against the Pharisees and Sadducees. He seems to have set these two rival groups against each other, as first one and then the other tests him to see if they can catch him out.

But they cannot. Jesus’s wise answers leaves them dumbfounded. You can’t say that the popular prophet John was sent from God without accepting that I am too, he tells them. It’s OK to pay taxes to the Romans as long as you also honour God and give to the work of the Temple or church. Heaven is a completely new kind of existence where concepts such as marriage and parenthood have no meaning. The most important thing to do is love God – but it’s equally important to love other people as much as yourself. And finally, Jesus himself was greater than David, the king who everyone remembered as being God’s favourite. No-one could contradict him on those points, although his interpretation of the Jewish scriptures was radically different from accepted teachings.

All through this time, these Jewish leaders were criticising Jesus, not praising him. But the ordinary people praised him, and most of all the children. As we saw yesterday, the faith of children is something precious and special, to be protected. Jesus saw in their enthusiastic response to his teaching and healing a fulfilment of a verse from the Psalms – “Out of the mouths of infants and babies you have prepared praise for yourself” (21:1, based on Psalm 8:2). It was in those children that Jesus saw his Kingdom starting to grow.

The Bible in a Year – 31 October.

If this is your first viewing, please see my Introduction before reading this.

31 October. Matthew chapters 18-20

The section headings in some modern Bibles are not part of the original text, but a good guide. In the NRSV chapter 18 is headed “True Greatness”. That sounds like the title of a self-help book. What is the secret of being “truly great”? Obviously we are not talking about “Making America great again” or similar political claims. But what makes a great person?

As Shakespeare wrote, “some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.” But his character was thinking in human terms – greatness as fame, or wealth, or power. Some adults devote all their energies to achieving at least one of these, and few of us are completely immune to their temptations.

Jesus’ example of true greatness is that of young children. He does not immediately go on to explain that, but maybe he was contrasting children, presumably at an age (and in a culture without TV celebrities) when fame and wealth and power were of no concern to them, with the anxieties that drive adults to seek greatness in the wrong form. But he does go to great lengths to stress the enormity of the sin of “causing [a child] who believes in me to stumble”. That might include what we would now call child abuse, but Jesus was probably intending rather the sin of making a child aware too soon of the temptations of the world, including those of fame and power.

Further on in this reading (19:13-15) he repeats this in a different form: “Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of heaven belongs”. That verse (with its older translation “Suffer the little children…”) is carved into many a Victorian church font. But the Victorian clergy marshalled the little children into Sunday School classes, taught them the Bible by rote, and in many cases probably also taught them to seek wealth and status in society. They may well have been just the stumbling blocks that Jesus warned about.

The following passage refers not to children but to young adults, in particular the young man who wanted to follow Jesus but felt unable to comply with Jesus’ instruction to “go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me” (19:21). In this respect, Jesus is not telling everyone they have to make themselves poor to be his followers. He is acting more like a wise spiritual director who discerns what is really going on in someone’s life – in this instance, a love of money preventing him from really engaging with Jesus’ teaching and ministry. Someone had, at some stage in this young man’s upbringing, “caused him to stumble” by giving him the impression that maturity is about seeking wealth and fame, rather than about finding who you really are and seeking God’s will for your life.

So for those of us who minister in churches that include children in the congregation (and a church that has none is in real trouble!) our task is to draw them to “come to Jesus” without being “stumbling blocks”. That will involve helping each child to find his or her own identity as a person and guide them along their own path to maturity and spiritual awakening. Along the way they will inevitably encounter the temptations to seek greatness in the world’s ways, but a Christian education is about equipping young people to seek a better path in life. It’s a tall order, but as Jesus warned, if we fail, it is we who will bear the burden of guilt.