SERMON 141 - SUNDAY 24 NOVEMBER 2019

Sermon delivered at the Roman Catholic Family Chapel, Whaddon, Evening Prayer Service on Feast of Christ the King Service – Sunday 24^th November 2019

Psalm 72; 1 Samuel 8:4-20; John 18:33-37

May I speak in the name of the Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen

Today we celebrate the Festival of Christ the King – hence the regal nature of many of our hymns this evening – “King of Glory, King of Peace” for example and so on and we are reminded that God sent us his only son to rule over us in a kingly capacity – his kingdom, though, not being of this world but through him and his disciples bringing something heavenly into this world: bringing the Kingdom of Heaven into this place – then and there - just as we as Christians are required to do each and every day of our earthly existence in the here and now.  Our heavenly king, Jesus Christ, is one of love and justice, a promulgator and defender of the faith in the truest sense of the word.

Our two readings this evening show different understandings of what a kingdom or king is.  In our first reading from the First Book of Samuel we read how the Jewish leaders, having seen how the countries around them were governed, wanted a similar system themselves for Judah. At that time the country was ruled by Judges, leaders of the various tribes who sat in conference very much in a similar manner to the Roman republican idea. The reason for this was that as part of their religious culture it was God, Jahweh, who was the ultimate leader of the country – the president so to speak and the Judges merely administered in the LORD’s name. In fact, at this time two of Samuel’s own sons had been appointed judges. In this way the Hebrew population was expected forever to hold out God as being the one to whom all deference and obedience was owed.  However, the Jews saw other countries being ruled by strong earthly monarchs and felt that their country would greatly benefit by having the same system.

It is with this in mind that Samuel tries earnestly to dissuade them by pointing out that monarchs are fallible human beings and for whom power can often corrupt to the extent that the subjects of their countries can suffer in the way in which he describes in great detail in our reading and that they should think very carefully before being seduced by the idea that having a monarch will bring strength and prosperity.  Samuel is very annoyed and upset as he sees this as the people turning away from God.  Samuel prophesises how it will turn out yet God relents and tells Samuel that if that is what they want that is what they will have and they can experience for themselves what such a governance will bring upon them..

As you will recall, as you read through the First Book of Samuel, the prophet is sent to find a suitable king and eventually Saul is anointed and enthroned.  His reign ends badly with David and afterwards Solomon succeeding him before the kingdom is later divided into two and eventually the Jews are taken into exile.  Thus ends the earthly kingdom of Judah/Judea/Israel up to the 1940s when the Jews returned to their promised land and established the modern state of Israel.

In our second reading we jump forward over 1,000 years to the time of Jesus’s trial before the Roman authorities in the form of Pontius Pilate who was very much aware of the Jewish history and saw the resurgence of a Jewish kingdom as a direct challenge to the Roman Empire and its puppet Herodian regime in Jerusalem. The Jewish people themselves were again looking for a great leader, a king, a Messiah to lead them out of Roman tyranny into a new glorious Davidian era. 

Pilate, in his examination of Jesus can only really act and order his Crucifixion if it can be established that Jesus is a genuine threat to the status quo of Roman rule through the puppet Herod.  If he can be established to be putting himself forward as an alternative leader, monarch, then that will suffice to hang him for treason or sedition. For this reason he asks Jesus a direct question – “Are you the king of the Jews?”  Such an admission would be a confession and condemn him.

Jesus acutely aware realises that as it is really the Jewish leaders themselves who want to put him away asks Pilate – “Is that your own idea or did others talk to you about me?”

Pilate appears confused.  From what he has seen of Jesus and the reports of his actions it does not appear that Jesus is a genuine threat to the status quo so he responds “”Am I a Jew? It was your people and your chief priests who handed you over to me. What is it that you have done?

In other words Pilate is saying that in his mind Jesus has done nothing against Roman law so it seems that it is Jesus’s own people who have some reason to what him out of the way – not the Romans.

Jesus then responds in an interesting manner by way of explanation.  In effectively admitting that he is a king he is at great pains to point out that his kingdom is not an earthly one – not one which the Jews themselves in their appeal to Samuel in our earlier reading expected.  It is a kingdom from another place – the kingdom of heaven not a kingdom of earth. That is what we are celebrating today – Jesus as the king of heaven.

As we know Pilate later went on to ensure that the inscription on Jesus’s cross had the words “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews” – not “claimed to be King of the Jews” for he was satisfied that had it been simply a claim he would not have had the authority to put him to death. Jesus did admit to being a king the question was “king of what?”

Today as Christians we are called upon to inhabit the kingdom of heaven.  That does not mean that we simply abide by the rituals and observances of institutionalised religion – Jesus was at great pains to put out to the Pharisees and Sadducees that this was not the way to salvation – but to act out our lives I such a way as to bring down the kingdom of heaven to earth.

This was a message which greatly influenced me and led me to my call to ministry. Many years ago I attended Spring Harvest and listened to a very influential speaker – Steve Chalke – now much maligned by the Evangelical Alliance.  What he said changed my life.  In a nutshell he explained “being a Christian is not about us trying to get up those metaphorical stairs to the kingdom of heaven – it is about bringing the kingdom of heaven down those stairs to earth.  Wow, what a revelation that was.

The kingdom of heaven, in parts, is already down here and I believe it it the duty of every Christian to do all in their power to bring as much of it down as we can. That is the lost message of Jesus – he is the monarch of that kingdom and with the Holy Spirit we have the tools to reach as many people as possible.  Just as our politicians are currently canvassing in this General Election so we too should be canvassing for our Holy King.

It feels at this present time that there is not enough of the holy spirit, of the kingdom of heaven here with us.  Dark forces seem to pervade our world – especially our so called wealthy western world. We seem so poor in what really matters – that genuine love and loving spirit which Jesus came down to show and share.

Let us resolve to honour our king and show to him that obedience and loyalty which we would expect to show towards our earthly monarchs.

Amen                                                                                                    MFB/23112018

SERMON 140 - SUNDAY 10 NOVEMBER 2019

Sermon delivered at St. John’s Parish Church, West Grimstead Remembrance Day Service – Sunday 10^th November 2019 (adapted from Sermon 124)

John 15:13

May I speak in the name of the Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen

“No one has greater love than this; to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you…I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another”

So speaks Jesus to his disciples in that same passage where he describes himself as the vine and them as the branches.

Today we remember and celebrate, yes celebrate too, the 101st anniversary of the ending of one of the most fruitless and destructive wars of all time – the armistice of the First World War with countless loss of life and much suffering for what was described as a war to end wars following the assassination of a member of a far-away foreign Imperial family, in a far-away foreign country, carried about by a foreigner resulting in the declaration of war by two far away foreign powers. 25 years later it was to all kick off again as a European conflict.

Yet, as we know, the First World War rapidly escalated into a global conflict played out largely by six powerful Empires resulting in a huge loss of life.  The Empires themselves never recovered (four of them disappeared altogether) and the remaining two were considerably weakened as a result. 

Today is, as always, is a remembrance too of all those who lost their lives – in that conflict and in later ones too – especially the Second World War which was equally destructive. We remember those who “laid down their lives”:

I was recently shown an image of a young couple hand in hand in a beautiful green pasture overlooking the sea. This wonderful idyllic peaceful scene is being held up by dozens and dozens of First World War Soldiers some dead, dying or wounded. In the words of the Kohima Epitath which we heard earlier this morning , “When you go home, tell them of us, and say, for your tomorrow we gave our today.”  For the young couple’s tomorrow they gave their today”.

A couple of years ago I went with my son to Ypres and was totally overwhelmed by the sheer volume of names of those who lost their lives in that one salient alone – names bearing the same surname as my own family and many others I know.  It hit me hard as does each and every Remembrance Sunday; and when I read my history books the waste seems so utterly terrible.

I have just finished reading a very interesting and enlightening book entitled simply “Hiroshima, Nagasaki” which describes in great detail the events leading up to the execution of the first two, and thankfully the last two atomic strikes on a predominantly civilian population, its execution and after effects.  Over 100,000 people (men women and children) were killed instantly – many vaporised within seconds of the destructive atomic fission explosion – later as many more died of radio-active poisoning as the truth emerged of the latent and dreadful damage which nuclear radiation causes. We live in a world which continues to have multi-conflicts across its surface with the ever present threat of nuclear weapons far more destructive than the horrors inflicted on those two Japanese cities.  It is therefore good to remember what the true horrors of war are and the effects on the ordinary population.  We have seen this very recently in Syria where the Kurds have been killed and dispossessed of their homes but military force.  

   

War is not, as has often been portrayed in films, romantic. Every person who lost his or her life as a result of war had a mother.  Families were torn apart by much grief and anxiety receiving or waiting to receive the dreaded War Office telegram or in some cases as in Japan never discovering the final awful fate of their loved ones at all.

So then how should the church approach this difficult  topic? What is the role of the church at times of such conflict and man-made horrors?  I believe it is not just to bury the dead or lead services of remembrance after the events.  I also believe that the church has a role too in preventing such conflicts occurring in the first place.

This was a question posed by and reflected on by the Reverend Geoffrey Studdard Kennedy during the First World War.  The Reverend Kennedy is better known by his nickname “Woodbine Willie”. Born to a clergyman in Leeds, he became a schoolteacher and later followed his father into the church being trained at Ripon College and serving his curacy in Warwickshire and later becoming the vicar of a parish church in the city of Worcester.  During that time one woman parishioner described him thus:

The first thing that Mr Kennedy did was to visit all the poor people. He was all for the poor; he was also an exceptional spiritual advisor. A steady flow of men and women found a man who thought it a privilege to take upon himself their burdens and their sins.

Kennedy had a great ability to get alongside those who were poor and vulnerable and this made him a great army chaplain when the First World War broke out.  He had the ability to get alongside the squaddies and the humble tommies in the trenches on the Western Front – speak their language and effectively be one of them – sharing their deprivations, anxieties and discomfort and their Woodbine cigarettes.  From the trenches he was asked on more than one occasion  “What the b ________ h___ is the church doing here?

His short answer was “It is trying to keep the hope of Heaven alive in the midst of a bloody Hell. It is trying to fill the army and keep it filled with the Spirit of the Cross, the spirit of strong love of Right which will triumph at all costs in the battle against Wrong”. Further, he said, the church has to counter “the temptation for men (and I will also add here ‘women’) to become brutalised and to live as do brutes – The Spirit of the Bayonet without the Spirit of the Cross”.

Today, we may not be fighting a world war as between 1914-1918 and 1939-19545 but the world continues to be brutalised and we see people living their lives towards others as brutes.  Today is a remembrance of those who have laid down their lives in faith in those battles against Wrong.  The church continues to have that role today – as we remember the fallen we should also remember our immediate role as reconcilers and instruments of peace.  Those we are remembering today made the ultimate sacrifice – their todays were given up for our tomorrows; as did Jesus Christ himself when he died on the Cross for our sins – in a spirit of strong love of Right against Wrong; just as Woodbine Willie put it in his short answer to those brutalised squaddies.

We are God’s soldiers, marching as to War, that Spiritual Warfare which we see all around us today, but we march not with guns or bayonets but with the Cross of Jesus.  As Woodbine Willie put it “we go into battle with the strength of the bayonet but with the spirit of the Cross”. To stand up for what is Right without becoming so brutal that we ourselves become the Wrong.

In the words of Christ himself - “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you…I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another”.

“At the going down of the sun and in the morning we will remember them”

Amen                                                                                                    MFB/09112019