SERMON 91 - SUNDAY 26 FEBRUARY 2017

Sermon at St. Mary’s Church, West Dean  -  Morning Worship  – Sunday 26th February 2017

Exodus 24:12-18; 2 Peter 1:16-21;  Matthew 17:1-9

Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in your sight, O Lord.  Amen

A common theme running through each of this morning’s reading is that each is saying something about God’s glory being revealed on a mountain top – “a mountain top experience” which is where one might expect to see God’s glory being revealed.  Yet as we know, the Gospel story of the Transfiguration occurs shortly before Jesus reveals that he will be betrayed, handed over and killed.

Recently I visited Madeira and like most visitors was impressed by how mountainous the terrain is – mountains in excess of 4,000 feet and impressive engineering feats evident to cut properties and roads into the seemingly impossible terrain.  My wife and I took a cable car and various buses up into the mountains from where we glimpsed the most amazing and breath-taking views of the capital Funchal and out to sea across the Atlantic Ocean.  With the beautiful flowers and plants around us in the cool clean air we felt at times very close to creation and the wonders of God’s world.  Yet also, at times, the low clouds which can envelope the island would blot out our heavenly views and obscure the beauty we had discovered.  The clouds could appear menacing and dangerous as our bus traversed the narrow winding roads with, at certain places, sheer drops of 400 to 500 feet below us.  I certainly felt vindicated in not having hired a car but equally fearful at having placed the lives of my wife and myself in the hands of, what I hoped was, an experienced , confident driver and sober driver.

Mountains, therefore, are places of glory and of fear.  In this morning’s readings we first of all see Moses with his assistant Joshua (“Jesus” in Greek) on the top of Mount Sinai with God.  We read in Verses 9-11, immediately before this morning’s extract that Moses was with Aaron, Nadab and Abihu and seventy of the Elders of Israel but at God’s command only Moses and Joshua (described as his assistant in our translation) went up as far as the summit, leaving Aaron, Hur and the other Elders below, to meet with God.  We read further that just like those mountains on Madeira, the cloud suddenly covered the mountain for six days and it wasn’t until the seventh day that God called out through the cloud to Moses.  Is this a parallel to the six days of Creation; God not giving his message, the tablets containing the law until the Sabbath?  Is this therefore a representation of a New Creation; a new Covenant?  We learn at the end of this piece of scripture that Moses stayed up on the mountain for 40 days and 40 nights – just like in the story of Noah it rained for 40 days and 40 nights – meaning a very long time.

In our Gospel reading we have a direct parallel – Jesus with Moses and Elijah.  Our passage starts with “Six days later” just as we had six days of Moses being on the mountain and a link with the six days of Creation – so we once again read that it was on the seventh day of a week that the Transfiguration occurred.  Just as in our narrative of Moses on Mount Sinai was accompanied by the Elders, so Jesus is accompanied by his disciples but leaves most of them at the foot of the mountain only taking up Peter and James.  Here, once more, God reveals his glory and Jesus is seen too in that glory when God announces that Jesus is his son in whom he is well pleased:  the same message given to John the Baptist and those at Jesus’s Baptism when the Holy Spirit came down in the form of a dove. At this point, Jesus’s true divinity is once more revealed especially to Peter, Jesus’s assistant. This time, however, we learn that the cloud which envelopes them is a bright cloud and Peter and James are fearful.  Jesus tells them not to be afraid but to get up and they see that Jesus is once more on his own.

It is also clear that at the beginning Peter really doesn’t understand what is going on.  He suggests that as this is such a good place to be – in the presence of Moses and Elijah, - he offers to put up three dwellings – probably tents, so that they can stay there for a long time. He doesn’t at that stage realise that this is a one off occurrence, it is to show the true glory and divinity of Jesus placing him above the status of Moses and Elijah whom the Jews revered as great prophets and Fathers of their Nation.  How many times have we had those wonderful mountain top experiences and wanted to stay up there, on a high for ever.  Unfortunately life is never like that and we all have to come down into the valley again. 

Peter, writing about this event, in his second letter, some years later, has become much clearer as to the significance of the event.  Peter now a much older, wiser and less impetuous individual appreciates how privileged he was to observe the Transfiguration shortly before his whole world seemed to come crashing down amidst the Passion and his Denial. Peter tells his readers that he and the apostles did not follow the myths and legends only associated with the Old Testament stories but had seen their truth as revealed on the Mountain of Transfiguration – that he as an eyewitness had seen Jesus’s glory revealed with his own eyes.

When practising as a court lawyer, I was always at great pains to tell my clients that an eyewitness to an event was worth 100 times the testimony of circumstantial or hearsay witnesses; so here Peter is underlining the point by saying “Yes I was there when I heard God say ‘This is my son, the Beloved with whom I am well pleased”.  “I heard it; I can vouch for the truth of this”.  This is a wonderful testimony and something which we should take great care to remember when our own Faith is challenged by others in this ever more secular society in which we live.  “For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our lord Jesus Christ”. In other words, and in the language of 2017 “We are telling you the truth, we are not following and disseminating False News”.  We as Christians and disciples can, therefore, be assured of the truth of the message which Peter tells us.  Now that is powerful stuff and makes the Transfiguration such an important event even today in 2017.

In Verse 19 Peter takes us deeper theologically and tells us that as we have the prophetic message fully confirmed – that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and our Saviour - we need to be attentive and act as would a lamp lighten a darkened place until, as Peter says, the day dawns and the morning star rises in our hearts.  A couple of weeks ago we heard a similar message from Jesus himself in his Sermon on the Mount – how we are to be salt of the earth and light of the world.

Peter acknowledges in his letter that the world has its dark places – the valleys into which we all descend from our mountain top places, but just as we descended back down into Funchal from the Madeiran mountains so the sun shone and the temperature rose. 

Psalm 119:105 tells us that “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path”; a lovely piece of poetry – but how true.  Peter repeats this by telling us that we should shine brightly and should carry our Faith as a light to the world until the True Light of Jesus returns – as he puts it “the morning star rises”. Peter also warns us to guard against putting our own interpretation on Scripture because true prophecy comes from or is moved only by the Holy Spirit, that third and equally important member of the Holy Trinity. One of the greatest gifts, if not the greatest gift of the Holy Spirit is discernment – the ability to discern what is of and from God  and what is from our own human thoughts and desires.  It’s a great gift because we can often so easily get it wrong.

In these days of much uncertainty and global fears, I am excited that throughout the world the Christian message is growing and thereby the lamp of Christianity continues to grow bigger and brighter.  We may be few in number here in West Dean but in China, for example, the number of Christians has grown to around 200 million (including Catholics) from about 1 million in 1949 and the rate of growth is increasing annually despite much persecution and State restrictions.  Perhaps the morning star will rise in the east both actually and metaphorically!

When the few of us pray together here this morning, we may be geographically small in this church but in reality we are a huge number globally.  When we pray and worship we add our own prayers to all those other Christian voices worshipping and praying be they in Bedford or Beijing. That is such a wonderful thought and one I ask you to hold on to whether you pray and worship in a small community, large mega church or in home group or individually at home.  You never pray alone but in the company of all Christians on earth and in heaven.

Whatever mountain you might have to climb during these forty days and forty nights of Lent, whatever heights you reach or depths you might have to plunge, remember that God is with you through the close companionship of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.

Let us pray;

Lord Jesus Christ, you appeared to your servants Peter and James transfigured with the prophets Moses and Elijah on a mountain top.  As we enter a period of prayer and reflection through Lent and remember the trials which you endured for us, so might you appear to us through the Holy Spirit to help us discern your words of scripture and the mission which you would have us fulfil. We thank you that you have already come into our lives and that we are a member of that wonderful family of your church. May the lamp which you have given us shine brightly in this world of dark valleys and enable us to see clearly until at last your great morning star rises.

Amen

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SERMON 90 - SUNDAY 12 FEBRUARY 2017

Sermon at St. John’s Parish Church, West Grimstead  -  Morning Worship  – Sunday 12th February 2017

Deuteronomy 30:15-20;  ; 1 Corinthians 3:1-9;  Matthew 5:21-37

Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in your sight, O Lord.  Amen

Each and every day we face rules and regulations governing our lives.  Recently I took a flight to Madeira from London Gatwick Airport and was confronted with dozens and dozens of rules and regulations in order to check in. What number, size and weight of bags I could take – either in the hold or in the cabin; what goods I could pack in those bags; how many centelitres of liquids, what types of liquid, nothing sharp, nothing inflammable etc. etc.  I had to tick a box to confirm that I and my travelling companions had read and acquainted themselves with all this rules and would abide by them. That was all on the computer before we even got to the airport.  On the way to the airport we were confronted with hundreds of road signs telling us not only the way but the speed, lanes we could drive in, warning signs, informative signs, etc. etc. and then once in the airport going through security more rules and regulations – put metal, belts, shoes, coins, laptops, tablets, phones etc. in different trays, take off your shoes, move through this lane etc. etc.  Clutching my beltless trousers tightly I eventually got through all this to eventually join our flight to Funchal.

Now all of those rules and regulations are important, without them our security in the air would be comprised or there would be anarchy on our roads.  Having spent some seven years training to be a lawyer and spending most of my working life as a solicitor, I am reasonably well acquainted with our laws and the need for them – but how much easier everything would be if the law was much simpler and common sense.

A few years ago I had the privilege of spending a few days in Reykjavik, the capital of Iceland, on a legal case. During the course of my time over there I enquired as to what was the single blue volume which the Icelandic lawyers and judge kept referring to. My legal host looked at me incredulously and responded “The Law”  meaning that contained in that one single book was the whole of the Icelandic law – criminal law, family law, property law, constitutional law, contract law etc. etc.  Indeed all the laws which I had studied and had to know to pass my legal qualification examinations but by reading and having access to literally hundreds and hundreds of text books, case reports and Parliamentary Acts. They couldn’t believe that in England we had no such simplified and codified legal system.  However to put it into its context the total population of Iceland is about the same as the city of Southampton so the law, although containing similar elements to our own, is governing far fewer people.

Yes, we live today in a society full of rules and regulations made by official bodies – but not content to just have those, we often indulge in making rules and regulation for ourselves in the way we lead our lives – strangling ourselves with our own rituals and procedures which can restrict our inner spiritual growth - and not getting back to the basics.

Our first reading this morning is taken from the Book of Deuteronomy and is one of the five books of the bible which make up the Jewish Law.   Together with the book of Leviticus it sets out specific rule and regulations for the Jews to follow. Our reading comes towards the end of Deuteronomy in which the people of Israel are reminded that by obeying the Commandments of Yahweh, God, by loving Yahweh, your God, observing his decrees and ordinances then the Jewish people shall live and become numerous and God will bless the people and their land.

When Moses came down from Mount Sinai in Exodus 20,  he had two tablets with him upon which were engraved the Ten Commandments.  I dare say that you can remember all ten easily, perhaps not in the correct order, but certainly their content. In fact there is an easy way to remember the correct order too which I’ll save for another day – or speak to me about it during coffee afterwards.

These Ten Commandments were to encapsulate the entire law and I daresay you would agree that they cover, just like the Icelandic book of Law, almost the entire circumstances under which law is required – property, crime, family, constitution, contract etc.  But, the Jewish Elders and Lawyers had added innumerable ordinances and rules on top of those simple ten rules engraved on those tablets. In the same way, in English Law we end up with masses of Statutory Instruments and codes just to define and clarify the larger Acts of Parliament.  As these legal instruments grow and become ever more complicated so very often illogical and difficult rules emerge far beyond the original law.  We can become slaves to our own man-made rules and regulations and our own personal rituals and our own way of doing things.  We become trapped. Like the Pharisees, obeying not just the Ten Commandments but each and every incredible rule set out for example in Leviticus. It is an incredible read with some things which today we would consider weird and whacky and positively un-PC.  We can easily lose sight of God’s wish that we develop ourselves to be his followers and disciples and lose the importance of the basic commandments themselves.

Throughout Jesus’s ministry, he was constantly being put to the test by the Elders and Pharisee and Lawyers and, as we know, frequently broke the ordinances such as healing (working) on the Sabbath and allowing his disciples to pick the ears of corn in the cornfield on a Sabbath.  He did this often to provoke a discussion on the futility, not of the basic law, but of the petty and unhelpful rules which had built up around the law and which had become, in some respect, symbols of power and control by the priests and elders. 

Jesus illustrates this point very well in his discourse in our Gospel Reading. The context is a continuation of the Sermon on the Mount which we have looked at over the past couple of weeks.  This Sermon was so very important because in it Jesus is taking the prophesy of Isaiah and the Jew’s history and law as set out in the earlier books of the Old Testament (and we have to remember that he only had the Old Testament as his theme to preach on – neither the gospels nor the epistles had yet been written for obvious reasons)  and he uses them in the context of the situation as he then found it in Judea and the importance of his ministry and later crucifixion and resurrection.

He says, that the Commandments are very specific – you will not murder, you will not commit adultery, you will not take the name of God in vain (swearing), and so on. But, He says, even if you don’t go as far as committing the actual act of murder but are angry with another person you will still be judged, and even if you do not commit the legal definition of adultery by sleeping with another married person yet by your mere lustful thoughts towards such a woman you will still commit that act in the eyes of God.  We can play about with semantics, we can seek to define legally words and terminology, but at the end of the day a simple understanding of God’s intentions is what is required.  In other words, it is time, as John Major said in 1992,  to get “back to basics”.  He reminds his audience that the Ten Commandments came from God and we should live by the spirit of those Commandments not simply pay lip service to them and then feel self-righteous that we can  tick the “check-in” box.

Later on, Jesus is asked by the lawyers “which of the Ten Commandments is the most important?” and Jesus replies that there are two – To love God, and to love your fellow human being as God loves us.  If we obey those two “back to basics” laws then all the other Ordinances and Rules and Regulations and Rituals are unnecessary because we will be living a life to a code required by God and nothing else would be necessary.  Now I am certainly not advocating that we should break the law – as Jesus himself said “I come not to break the law but to fulfil it” meaning that the basics rules of life are the ones which he, as the Son of God, wants to restore – loving God and loving our fellow Humans.

To go back to my air travel analogy, if everybody strictly obeyed the two Commandments which Jesus heralded as the most important, then, from a security point of view (accidents will always happen) air travel would be safer without the need for so many regulations.

Likewise, God wants us to be free from our own strangling rituals and regulations. To feel free to love and worship him and to be kind, compassionate and loving towards our fellow humans.  In the words of Louis Armstrong “What a Wonderful World” that would be.

Amen

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SERMON 89 - SUNDAY 5 FEBRUARY 2017

Sermon at St. Peter’s Church, Pitton  -  Morning Praise  – Sunday 5th February 2017

Isaiah 58:1-12; 1 Corinthians 2:1-12; Matthew 5:13-20

Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in your sight, O Lord.  Amen

This morning we have heard three very significant and long readings from each of the Old Testament, New Testament Epistles and Gospel – and from perhaps the three greatest contributors to the Christian scriptures we so lovingly read and, hopefully, follow – Isaiah, Paul and Jesus. Although many centuries span our first and second readings the ideas conveyed remain constant and if the language used may seem to us today difficult or flowery even, the message is very simple and I believe never more relevant to where we find the world in 2017.

The rebuke, for that is what it is, in the reading from Isaiah is actually the very essence of the Sermon on the Mount from which our Gospel reading is taken and as we go into the last month before Lent, it is good to remind ourselves and reflect upon what God expects of us in following Christ and leading Christian lives.

Isaiah is admonishing those who would pay lip service to the law: fasting and undertaking religious rituals and observances yet not caring for the poor or oppressed.  As Isaiah so clearly puts it “Is not the fast that I choose, to loose the bonds of injustice; to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free and to break every yoke? “ (Isa 58:6)

In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus takes up Isaiah’s challenge and in the beatitudes reminds his listeners of Isaiah’s statement and that it is the poor and humble, the peacemakers, who will be blessed. 

 Isaiah continues “Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house? : when you see the naked, cover them, and not hide yourself from your kin. Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly.”

Isaiah is writing at a time when the Jews were in Exile in Babylon lamenting the fact that they believed their unrighteousness, by not observing the Jewish law, had led to their captivity and exile. They had a strong belief that a strict and total adherence to the law alone would bring them salvation.  Isaiah is saying that this is really not enough we must help the poor and weak and moving forward to Jesus’s time their country was yet again overrun by a foreign power, this time the Roman Empire. Throughout the gospels we read of Jesus’s discussions and arguments about the law and as we heard in the gospel reading this morning Jesus is at pains to tell the Jewish authorities and ordinary people that he is not here to break the law but rather to fulfil it because the leaders have not got it right. They did not listen to Isaiah. Isaiah was at great pains to point out that they hadn’t got it right several hundred years before too. The law is about protecting the weak and vulnerable, about humility and looking after each other and other peoples – as is encapsulated in the Commandments the greatest two Jesus was quick to point out was to love God and to love each other as God loves us.

We started this morning’s service when the children were with us with the very jolly little song “This Little Light of Mine” and we shall end it when they return with the song which has as its refrain “Walk, Walk in the Light”.  I think that the first hymn should actually be entitled “This Great Light of Mine” – although it wouldn’t scan quite so well - because that is the concept that Jesus is putting so well in his great Sermon – we are all called upon to walk in the light and shine with God’s glory. He is telling this to his followers, his disciples and we, as modern day Christians must always remember that we are his disciples today.

Jesus uses another metaphor for how Christians should be – and here I emphasise that we are talking about being and not simply doing.  The Jews thought that by doing – observing and doing religious acts they would avoid the wrath of God and gain salvation, whereas Jesus is saying that it is by being faithful to God’s calling and being warm-hearted and loving our fellow man that we really fulfil what God intends for us.  Jesus talks about us being the salt of the earth.

I love that term – whenever somebody says “he or she is the salt of the earth” we know exactly what that means – a good and honest decent person, reliable and to be looked upon favourably, having integrity but also being humble and kind.  A wonderful epitaph for anyone to have.

Jesus uses the examples of salt and light telling his followers that they are indeed “the salt of the earth and the light of the world” (Mt 5:13-14).  Both salt and light are the very essence of and necessary for life to exist.  Salt is vital to sustain life especially in the hot countries of the world – so much so that in the last century the British authorities taxed it in places like India where Gandhi carried our his great march across the sub-continent to the sea to make salt in defiance of and a mark of protest against British domination in his country.  Salt, like light, is readily available but can also be withdrawn.  Salt makes food taste better, it is also used to cure and preserve it and can also be used as an antiseptic – indeed in Nelson’s navy salt was rubbed into the wounds of sailors who had been lashed not to increase their suffering, although it can’t have been very pleasant and from this experience we get the phrase “to rub salt into the wound” meaning to make things worse -  but actually it was used to help cleanse and heal the wounds; but as Jesus says, if salt loses its saltiness, if it loses its properties for whatever use it is normally put to, it is of no use to anybody. It is simply thrown away and trampled under foot.  Jesus is telling us that we have so much to give by being “salt” but if we lose that ability to be as such – to add taste, preserve or heal then we are no good for anything.  We are human “beings” and not human “doings” and by being the salt of the earth we are capable of sustaining and preserving the spiritual lives of those God wants us to be and those around us.  We can cleanse, add taste and heal others by our Faithful lives – by being as God would have us be.

Similarly, we are the light of the world.  As Christians we have received the light of Christ and through him the Holy Spirit.  In the Nunc Dimittis, the Song of Simeon who, as an old man, was present at Christ’s presentation at the temple by Mary, Simeon says of the child Jesus “[he will] be a light to lighten the Gentiles and to be the glory of your people Israel”. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is passing that light on to all his followers and like the Olympic Torch that light passes from one Christian generation to another in continuity – to all who follow Christ. That is an immense responsibility and one we should never shirk from.  Jesus is with us and remains with us, by us and in us every day and by bearing or being his light we, as his disciples, are expected to go forth and make further disciples. Pass the “Olympic Torch”. Wow, what a wonderful and joyous responsibility. Simeon is also prophesying that Jesus will not only bring glory to the people of Israel, as predicted by Isaiah, but also will bring a light to all people, Jews and Gentiles alike.  Jesus’s light is available to all just as is the ability for us to be the salt of the earth.

Today the world is facing fresh and difficult challenges.  I don’t need to spell them out in detail – they are there for all to read and see in the media; challenges facing Great Britain, Europe, the United States, the Middle East and Asia in particular. In fact the challenges are global because whether we like it or not we live in a global society.

We look for heroes, men and women of action to lead and solve our problems.  In the 1920s and 1930s the German people looked for a hero, a man of action, a leader to come forward. He did – with catastrophic and tragic consequences. Such people are doers – they get things done but often with little regard for their ethical and moral character.  As Christians, and particular those in leadership in the church, we are called to be people of being – being of good character, being ethical, being morally upright. It is not always easy – but that is precisely what Jesus is telling us.  Things will get done but in a manner which accords with God’s desires for the world and Jesus’s teachings and example.

Paul in our epistle reading takes up the theme further by reminding his readers in Corinth by asking the question “what human being knows what is truly human except that the human spirit is within him?” (1 Cor. 2:11). He then answers it by saying “Now we have received not the spirit of the world but the Spirit that is from God so that we may understand the gifts bestowed on us by God and we speak of these things in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit interpreting spiritual things to those who are spiritual” [1 Cor. 2:12].

In other words, to be fully alive as human beings is, as St. Iraneus taught us, to show the Glory of God.  God wants us to be spiritual beings as well as human beings and by using the gifts which we receive we can be true disciples of the living Christ.

Towards the end of our service today we will sing the song “The Spirit Lives to Set us Free” with the refrain “Walk, Walk in the Light” the last verse of which says “The Spirit Lives in You and Me”.  I encourage you, when you sing this today, to reflect on how you can use the gifts given to you by the Spirit, to keep you walking and shining in the light of the Lord for yourselves and others.

Amen

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