Tag: salvation

Faith seeking understanding

A sermon for Maundy Thursday at St Peter’s Bramley
Readings: Exodus 12:1-14 / John 13:1-35

Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you didn’t understand what was going on?  I recall at least two such occasions, one secular and one spiritual.

A couple of years ago, my manager invited me to a meeting. I was given only a vague idea of what it was about and didn’t know who else would be present. I entered the room to find my manager talking to two people I didn’t know.  I took my seat and the conversation continued without reference to me. Eventually I could stand it no longer and I interrupted, to ask if we could have some introductions, and some context for the conversation so that I could understand the discussion and join in. Afterwards my manager apologised, and agreed that there should have been introductions and an agenda.

Back in the 1990s, as those who have been Christians a long time ago may recall, there was a worldwide spiritual revival called the Toronto Blessing.  Some members of my congregation had been to the New Wine Christian festival that year, and when they returned to the local church, several of them had changed in what seemed to me very odd ways.  One young woman who was normally very shy and quiet had become much more confident in her faith and told of how the Holy Spirit had physically thrown her across the room.  One older lady found that whenever the Bible was read aloud, she would shake uncontrollably.  Others had received the gift of tongues for the first time.  I’m not doubting that any of these experiences were genuine for those concerned, but to me it was disconcerting, and if I’m honest a bit frightening. 

Both our readings today, as we remember Jesus’ last supper with his disciples before the crucifixion, are about people confused and frightened by spiritual goings-on.  Put yourself in the position of the Israelite people: not Moses and Aaron, but the ordinary folk: the shepherds, brickmakers, straw-gatherers, male and female slaves, children in the street.  They had experienced a series of plagues the like of which no-one had seen before: frogs, gnats, locusts, hail… it must have been truly terrifying. And now they are told what they must do to avoid their eldest sons being killed by the angel of death: they were to kill a lamb, spread its blood around the door, roast and eat it – but not with the usual vegetables, instead with bitter herbs and unleavened bread.  And to dress for the occasion: not in their best clothes, but in belted tunic and sandals, holding a staff. The outfit of a pilgrim. And to eat the meat in haste, because as soon as the meal was over, they would have to flee for their lives. 

Did the people act on these strange instructions? It seems they did, as the Exodus story givens no hint of any of them being left behind. In confusion they followed Moses and Aaron across the plains to the Red Sea, and we all know what happened next. 

Move forward perhaps thirteen hundred years. Jesus’ disciples had already seen many miracles and other odd happenings over the last few years with Jesus, and other events more recently may not have made much sense, such as Jesus’ riding into Jerusalem on a donkey. But now they had been sent ahead to prepare the Upper Room for the Passover meal. At least they knew what to expect this time. There was a set menu, and the story of the Exodus was repeated word for word every year.

Except, this time it wasn’t. Jesus, their Lord and Messiah, acted like a slave in washing their feet. He used the occasion to warn of his imminent betrayal and death.  Judas left the room to go about some unspecified business, which Jesus understood but the rest didn’t.  Jesus started talking about his body and blood instead of bread and wine.  And then, like the people of Israel in Egypt, as soon as the meal was ended they were ushered out into the darkness on a journey to – what?  Very, very, strange.  But again, there’s no suggestion that anyone was left behind. Without understanding, but with complete trust in Jesus, they followed on to find out what happened next.

What is it that makes people join in and follow without fully understanding what’s going on?  In a word, faith. In our Start course sessions during Lent, we have discussed how much we need to understand about the Bible and the Christian life to set out on a journey of faith.  The answer seems to be, not very much. If we can grasp the essentials, the rest will follow in good time.  And there’s good precedent for this: the 11th century theologian Anslem of Canterbury is perhaps best known for his three-word summary of Christian theology as being ‘Faith seeking understanding’. Faith comes first; understanding follows.

But what is this faith that we can grasp, before fully understanding it? The connection between the Exodus and Holy Week is no coincidence. In God’s master plan, one was always intended as a shadow, a prequel if you like, for the other. The details may have been different, but the core message was the same. I suggest it can be reduced, like Anselm’s summary of theology, to three words:

Lamb, blood, salvation.

The descendants of Jacob who ended up in Egypt were pastoral nomads. Lambs would be slaughtered as a sacrifice to God, and the meat would have been a regular part of their diet. But in this special feast it took on a new significance.  The blood of the lamb, in particular, was used in this new ritual of marking the doors for protection against death.  And through this Exodus, this going out from the plague-stricken land of Egypt, not only would their firstborn be saved from imminent death, but the whole of the twelve tribes would be saved from the wrath of Pharaoh. They didn’t understand at the time what was happening, but later they did, and passed the story down the generations until Jesus took it up that Passover eve in Jerusalem.

What Jesus did on Good Friday was to take this story of salvation through the blood of the lamb and make it his own. Not without reason did John the Baptist call Jesus the Lamb of God: it’s a title that has come down through the centuries. In his one, perfect sacrifice for sin, Jesus did away with the need for any other kind of sacrifice, whether of lambs or anything else. By inviting his disciples, and all who would follow, to share the cup of wine in remembrance of the shedding of his blood, we are united with each other and with those who came before us in the story of salvation. In his death, through the shedding of innocent blood, and through his resurrection that echoes the people if Israel coming up out of the waters of the Red Sea, Jesus has led us out from the slavery of sin, into the freedom of a life with God, without the fear of his wrath.

Those disciples didn’t understand, in the Upper Room, what all this was about. Later, after the Resurrection, Ascension and Pentecost, they did, the Gospel was preached, then written and passed down the centuries to us.

Now, it is for you and me to take this story and make it our own. To have faith in our Saviour, faith that throughout our life seeks a deeper understanding. To pass it on to new generations, that they too may know, believe and understand.  This is his story: this is our song.

Lamb, blood, salvation. 

Amen.

Safe in the hands of God

The Oxford University crest, the opening line of Psalm 27

Today’s hymn from Sing Praise is ‘Safe in the hands of God’ by Michael Perry. The suggested tune is a Scottish one, ‘Bunillidh’, but John wrote his own. 

It’s a setting of Psalm 27, one of the more positive psalms, and the first line of which, “The Lord is my light” (in Latin) is well known to any Oxford student as the University motto (see image above). Michael Perry rearranges the lines so that doesn’t appear at the start of this hymn.  The themes of psalm and hymn are that God lights our path and acts as our salvation if we trust him and follow in his way.

‘Salvation’ here doesn’t mean particularly having our sins forgiven and becoming part of the Christian church, which is the more common Christian use of the term. In the sense used here, it refers more to offering protection, saving us from the harm caused by evil in ourselves or from other people, or making whole (the Latin ‘salus’ can also mean ‘health’).

Sing the gospel of salvation

Today’s hymn from Sing Praise is “Sing the Gospel of salvation” by Michael Forster.  The theme is evangelism, but he recognises that what was once seen as a tension between evangelism and tackling injustice is now more widely regarded as two complimentary ways of participating in God’s mission.  The ‘gospel of salvation’ is the explanation of how Jesus came to reconcile the world to God, with an invitation to individuals to align their lives with him. ‘Social action’ by the Church (the phrase is not used here but that is what it is about) is the practical ways in which that reconciliation is worked out in individual lives – mostly outside the church building.

The three verses therefore explore different ways in which people are excluded from their full potential as human beings, and the ways in which by the proclamation of the Gospel and their turning to Christ those exclusions can be addressed.  As the first verse puts it “all the darkness of injustice cannot dim salvation’s light, for the outcast and exploited count as worthy in God’s sight”.

The second and third verses both refer to Jesus as the Shepherd, a name he used for himself as the one who leads people back to God as well as protecting us from danger – “Those who recognize the saviour take their place within the fold”.  The last verse celebrates the new creation, begun on earth but to be fulfilled in heaven, as “the victims of injustice [are] now redeemed and glorified”, and as “fear and weeping are ended, hunger and oppression cease”. We know that in practice the injustices of human society will never be completely done away with until Christ’s reign is fully established, but it is the Church’s call to share that hope and faith for the future, while doing what we can to alleviate suffering here and now in the name of the one whose gospel we proclaim.

The Bible in a Year – 18 November

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

18 November. Luke chapters 10-11

When people ask for a “sign” to prove that Jesus was truly the Son of God, he refers them to the story of Jonah.  Why Jonah?  He shares some things in common with Jesus: perhaps most obviously in the storytelling, as Jonah slept in the boat, a great storm blew up and his fellow passengers woke him, believing that he could calm the storm, just as Jesus did.  But Jonah was not the Messiah, in fact we are told that he was sinning by running away from God, and far from being able to calm the storm, only by being thrown overboard, apparently to certain death, could it be abated.  So when Jesus calmed the storm with a single word, he was reckoning himself greater than a prophet.

That explains Jesus’ next comment, “The people of Nineveh will rise up at the judgement with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the proclamation of Jonah, and see, something greater than Jonah is here!” (11:32). How else was Jesus greater?  Well he rose from the dead.  Jonah was in the darkness of the fish until the third day when it miraculously spewed him up, alive and unharmed, on dry land.  Likewise Jesus lay dead in the tomb until the third day, but he was resurrected.

Jonah was very unlike Jesus, though, in one respect. He loved the idea of preaching doom to the people of Nineveh but hated it when they obeyed the message and repented, and God spared them from destruction.  Jesus on the other hand wept over those who refused his message of salvation, and told of the joy there would be in heaven over one sinner who repents.  Which are you?  A Jonah who loves bringing bad news, or like Jesus, one who delights in bringing good news?

The Bible in a Year – 8 October

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

8 October. Galatians chapters 1-3

The first of St Paul’s letters or epistles that we are covering is that to the Christians in Galatia.  Paul is concerned that they, whom he has previously taught the ‘gospel’, are now listening to others with different ideas about how to live as a Christian.  His use of the word gospel is interesting, since his letters were written before the biographies of Jesus that we call “the Gospels”.  The word simply means ‘good news’. It refers here to the teaching that Jesus came, not simply as a rabbi or healer, but as God in human form to reconcile all people to God.

I mentioned in yesterday’s post (on the letter of James) that whereas James insisted on the importance of ‘works’ (right living according to ethical principles), Paul stressed equally strongly that only faith in Jesus matters, and that trying to make oneself right with God by obeying the Law (religious rules) actually fights against all that Jesus came for.   How can these two contemporaries, who knew and largely respected each other, offer in the earliest surviving Christian writings two such opposed views?

For one thing, as Paul explains towards the end of his autobiography that occupies the first chapter and a half of the letter, his calling by God was to bring the gospel to the gentiles (non-Jews) who might be used to hearing all kinds of different religions with their various rituals, whereas James, along with Peter (Cephas) and others, were called to bring it to Jewish believers.

There is a very telling verse here: “for until certain people came from James, he [Cephas/Peter] used to eat with the Gentiles. But after they came, he drew back and kept himself separate for fear of the circumcision faction” (2:12).  It seems that James, who was concerned that his Jewish Christian hearers should not lose sight of the high moral standards that Jews were expected to follow, insisted on the new converts being circumcised. They might therefore have assumed that they had to obey the regulations too. Paul however felt that he had to emphasise that both circumcision, and keeping the regulations, were quite unnecessary for someone who had not grown up in the Jewish culture.

Few new Christians today come from Judaism (though there are a few, who style themselves ‘Messianic Jews’). For most, they will need more to take in Paul’s teaching that unlike all other religions, Christianity is not about conforming to rules, it is about being conformed by the Holy Spirit to the likeness of Jesus in the way that we live.  He showed that loving God and your neighbour is not optional; but it is not achieved by the keeping of many regulations.

The Bible in a Year – 27 August

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

Introductory notes to Esther

The book of Esther in the ‘standard’ Bible, i.e. the one generally read by the Protestant church, consists of ten chapters.  It is in fact an abridged version of the full story as found in the Greek (Septuagint) Bible still used by the Catholic Church and which consists of 16 chapters. However scholarship has shown that these are out of order.

 I am commenting on the fuller text as set out in the Revised Standard Version Common Bible (Collins edition, 1973), which sets these 16 chapters out in a sequence that tells the story of Esther in its natural order. This is why the chapter numbers may appear in my comments to be out of order.  I hope that makes sense.  In this version, the name of the King is Ahasuerus.  In other translations this Babylonian name is rendered Xerxes (don’t ask me why!)

27 August. Esther chapters 7 to 10

The third and final part of the book turns the fear of disaster among the Jews into salvation and celebration. In chapters 7 and 8 Esther explains Haman’s plot to the king; Haman’s attempt to plead to Esther for mercy is misinterpreted by the king as an assault on her, and he is hung immediately without trial. Esther and Mordecai are then allowed to write the text of a second royal edict, not only cancelling the first one and saving the Jews from ethnic cleansing, but permitting them to slay all their enemies without reprisal on the day when they were intended to have been the victims.

Again, the full text (in chapter 16) gives the text of this edict, which is more of a diatribe against Haman than a diplomatically worded legal text. Verse 7 seems very pertinent today with the very undemocratic actions of Presidents Putin and Trump: “What has been wickedly accomplished through the pestilent behaviour of those who exercise authority unworthily, can be seen not so much from the ancient records which we hand on, as from investigation of matters close at hand” (RSV).

The last two chapters explain how these incidents are the reason for the Jewish feast of Purim. The additional text in chapters 10 explains how God provided ‘purim’ (chances, opportunities), ‘one for the people of God and one for all the nations’ (10:10). That ties in with the later Christian idea of the Gospel of salvation through Jesus being given ‘first for the Jews and then for the gentiles’.

Esther may only be a story, rather than having any historical basis, but it reminds us of the ever-present danger of ethnic hatred and persecutions. We have seen such hatred flaring up in recent years in places such as Rwanda, Syria and parts of the former Soviet Union, as well an in Nazi Germany. In these situations, people of different religious or ethnic groups who used to live together peacefully find themselves fighting against each other, often stirred up in the first instance by a very small number of extremists.  But such events seem to have an unstoppable momentum, unless someone who is there ‘for such a time as this’ is courageous enough to step in and bring peace and justice.  For what time and purpose has God put you were you are?

The Bible in a Year – 29 June

If this is your first viewing, please see my Introduction before reading this, and the introduction to the Psalms for this book of the Bible in particular.

29 June. Psalms 17-20

Reading these four psalms is a game of “spot the odd one out”. It is not difficult.  Numbers 17, 18 and 20 are all about God giving victory to one person or army against another – although there are differences, as they seem to be responses to quite different circumstances.

 

PS 17 is the cry of a man under pressure, who calls on God to be on his side because he is the underdog, he is the one trying to do what is right while all around him are unscrupulous people who will do anything to get the better of him.  Ps 18 is a song of relief, written from the safe place after being rescued by God, looking back on how he did in fact deliver the righteous person from their enemies. The imagery used to depict God’s saving power is that of storm and earthquake when the battles is at its height, and that of one soldier training another for victory.  Ps 20 is written from the sidelines of battle, or perhaps before approaching the enemy, quietly confident that God will give victory to one’s own side.

 

In between these is Ps 19, very different in character.  It celebrates how God is found in both the natural order and in the Law (that is, sacred writings).  Joseph Haydn famously set the first verse (“The heavens are telling the glory of God”) to music in his choral masterpiece The creation. Many people testify that it is in contemplating the natural world, whether galaxies or the equally amazing scenes viewed in a microscope, that they have come to understand the divine presence behind the visible world.

 

Others find their inspiration in meditating on the Bible or other religious writings, which lead not towards the outer world but the inner world – contemplation of one’s own spiritual life.  And that naturally leads to self-examination: “But who can detect their errors? Clear me from hidden faults”.   The last verse is often used by preachers to ask God to guide their thoughts and words:  “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer” (19:14).

 

So whether in the heat of conflict, before or after it, whether gazing up at the stars, down into a microscope or into one’s own mind and heart, God is to be found in many ways.  He is never entirely absent from us and will take any opportunity to reveal himself.