Do you believe in miracles?

As you all know Luke wrote two books - the Gospel of Luke which takes the message of jesus from Nazareth to Jerusalem and the book of Acts which take it from Jerusalem to Rome and indeed all the known world. The first half of the second book follows the very early church from the moments after the Ascension and interweaves the missions of both Paul and Peter. To adequately speak about this morning;s reading I need to go back a little to verse 32:

“Now as Peter went here and there among all the believers he came down also to the saints living in Lydda. There he found a man named Aneas who had been bedridden for eight years for he was paralyzed. Peter said to him; ‘Aneas, Jesus Christ heals you; get up and make your bed’ and he immediately got up. And all of the residents of Lydda and Sharon saw him and believed in the Lord.”

Now, Joppa was not far, about ten miles away, note by the way that Tabitha is called a disciple, so when she fell in they sent for Peter. They must have known the story of Jesus raising Jarius’ daughter and they would have heard that Peter had healed Aneas so this would have been a natural thing for them to od. We hear that Tabitha was particularly loved. Peter arrives and replicates almost exactly what Jesus did: he puts the mourners outside and then prays. In both cases the healing is not done in Peter;s name but in the power of calling on Jesus Christ, aloud in the first case and in prayer in the second.


Now the book of Acts of course is what it says on the tin. Accounts of how Jesus acted powerfully through his witnesses, the apostles, so the acts of the apostles to ensure growth of the church. The word growth or the idea of growth occurs throughout this book. “All the residents of Lydda and Sharon saw him and turned to the Lord” and “This became known throughout Joppa and many believed in the Lord” are but the two examples we have heard this morning. Jesus had risen to the Father and sent his Holy Spirit to the upper room to alight on the Apostles - the event we will celebrate at Pentecost in a few weeks time. His leaving was not the end but the  beginning at at that time the people of Palestine, Judea and farther afield  believed in Jesus because they SAW miracles.

I think it is the film “The full Monty” that has the hit song “I believe in miracles” in it and in the two stories that we have heard we are confronted with the question “Do you believe in miracles?”
And I mean real miracles - it happened that this week I was called on to review the newspapers - and I was much attracted by a headline in one of them : “Miracle at Anfield.” but it seemed it was not the story I was looking for! Over the years I have met many who tell me they do not believe in miracle and who reasonably look for rational explanations. Equally I have met others who fervently do. For example I knew a hospital chaplain who working day by day among the realities of disease, sickness and the range of happy and tragic outcomes would still encourage and take some patients to healing services and who had accounts of unexpected, surprising recoveries.

There is then a spectrum of opinion among my friends and acquaintances and I wonder does it matter? If you are inclined to analyze the accounts of witnesses, including the biblical ones, you may of course be left with doubts about specific instances. If you are lucky enough to meet someone who has experience of Christ working powerfully in their lives you will invariably be caught up in their certainties but for the most part of course we do not KNOW in the way that the apostles had seen and experienced. So what I think is important is not “Was Tabitha raised from the dead?” or “was the lady’s cancer cured by her visit to the Watford church?” for we can prove or disprove neither, but to decide whether the God you believe in and I believe in is CAPABLE of working miracles - I certainly believe that God can and does miraculous things every day -

The point is that the people of Joppa believed in Jesus because they saw miracles

I believe in miracles because I believe in the Lord.

Amen

Hang in there

Isaiah 56:1-8

 In our reading from Isaiah we heard something unexpected. Isaiah, albeit second Isaiah is addressing his prophecies to the exiles in Babylon and of course is wholly devoted to Israel’s God At this moment he finds himself on the threshold of the fulfillment of earlier prophets’ expectations. So he is moved to say:

“Maintain justice and do what is right for my salvation is close at hand.”

Risen next door to  the Babylonian empire are the Medes who under Cyrus will become what we call the Persian empire stretching form the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean, a powerful force which would capture the city of Babylon and indeed be welcomed as a liberator. This is the main thrust and hope of Isaiah’s prophecy and he starts by telling the Israelites to “hang in there.”  For at the moment the reality of life for the exiles and for those who have started to return is harsh. Even following these simple rules though is difficult.

Maintain justice and do what is right. “Happy,” he goes on to say, “is the man who refrains from any wrongdoing.“ You will notice that I have substituted the word EVIL, which for us denotes an extreme with a softer word which I hope captures the sense of trying always  to do what is right rather than what may be considered wrong. This seems evident enough but we are not good at this; our corporations and government institutions local and national and even whole countries spend a great deal of time arguing that what they do is “what the law allows”. Which is not the same thing at all! For example:

My friend’s benefits were stopped, the benefits that they lived on. They were stopped because they had not replied to a letter asking them a question. It could have been observed that over the years my friend had always replied to letters in fact had been diligent in doing so - so something was wrong, it might have been asked were they ill? It might have been asked were they alive? It might have been asked as was the case whether the letter had ever been sent or not delivered. But the law allowed the benefits to be stopped, so stopped they were. This was not maintaining justice and doing what was right.

And the rewards for doing right are considerable: “for my salvation will come and my deliverance will be revealed.” And - here is the unexpected bit even to the foreigner and the eunuch. Now Isaiah will be familiar with Deuteronomy especially chapter 23:1 to which I draw your attention as it explains in graphic detail, too much for before the watershed, that eunuchs shall not be admitted to God’s assembly and goes on to say the same about foreigners.

Isaiah as I said was wholly devoted to Israel’s God but now he is able and moved to say that being a people of God does not depend on ancestry, which is remarkable for the Jewish nation of his day,  but depends on following the Lord, holding fast to his covenant for whoever you are if you do this you will be brought to his Holy mountain.



Isaiah speaking God’s word is prophesying both near term, that there will be deliverance for the exiles from Babylon
and long term, that the coming of the suffering servant will change everything for everybody.

And this is why we have always to seek to do what is right, to maintain justice and not to do simply what is allowed.

Hang in there.

(How much) do you love me?

 John 21

There was a moment before Nina and Rosie when I was worrying about our previous spaniel, Fidget. Now I was travelling the world and Frances was busy with boys and studying so I proposed that we should look for a dog walker to keep Fidget exercised. Patrick, who was then about eight or nine said “Oh no don’t do that, because if you do then Fidget will not have enough love left for us.”

Of course we laughed, but it does bring us to Jesus’ question: “Simon, son of John do you love me more than these?” It is unclear who the these are? Does Jesus mean do you love me more than you love these friends and companion fishermen or do you love me more than they love me? Either way it sets up the question “(How much) Do you love me?”

Peter says “Yes Lord, you know that I love you.” A second time Jesus asks “Do you love me?” and Peter replies again “Yes Lord you know that I love you.” And then the third time …..

How we feel for Peter here, he must have felt a terrible stab of pain and guilt as only a few days before he had three times denied even knowing Jesus, of ever having been with him and at that third denial he realised, he discovered, deep within himself, all the things Jesus had said. And now here is another third time and so Peter needs to declare with and from all his being that he loves the Lord. So the third time Peter  rests his affirmation not on himself but on Jesus: “Lord you know everything, you know (how much) I love you.

For Jesus’ question, the real question , is what is love?  Ever since the beginning God has been showing his love for us in creation, incarnation, crucifixion and resurrection. Each of these has a completeness, a totality of giving which is beyond us. This is much more than our feelings of spontaneous, natural affection, fondness or admiration usually described by our word “love.” Each of these, creation, incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection, is an act of WILL - God intended creation to show a glimpse of beauty, perfection and wonder, meant incarnation to show his love for us despite our brokenness, crucifixion willingly surrendered to loving sacrifice and resurrection to show us the ultimate loving gift of eternal life.

Jesus showed us loving without limit and in doing so he revealed a fundamental and essential quality of God which is a model for human imitation.

Which is very scary. For we will always fall short. We will be a little like Patrick’s view of Fidget, that she has a tank of love which will run out.  It is clear that God’s immeasurable unending love for us is something we can only but poorly emulate but still we need to remember that as well, as a response, our loving  God is an act of WILL and with that will we must at least be sure to empty the tank that we have.

Amen.

Fingers on Buzzers please ......

Exodus 14: 10 -end The parting of the Red Sea
John 20: 19-31         Doubting Thomas

Fingers on buzzers please - your starter for 10:

If 7 is hail and thunderstorms, and 9 is darkness what is 2?
The answer to this University Challenge question is frogs, and the bright young things easily got it right. Now the Israelites had witnessed all these attempts to persuade Pharoah to let them leave Egypt and to free them from the slavery of making bricks without straw, they had celebrated what we know as the Passover and had chosen to follow Moses, their leader and a man of God.

Yet despite all these clear signs from Yahweh, of frogs, lice, flies, boils, locusts not to mention the slaying of all the first born they came to a crisis of faith. “What have you done bringing us out of Egypt - were there not enough graves there for us to die into?”

Some of you know already that I am a fan of Handel’s Oratorio “Israel in Egypt” because I played a little of it at our Lent courses. At the end of part two there are three short and connected choruses:

“But the waters overwhelmed their enemies”
There was not one of them left,
There was not one not one not one of them left

“And Israel saw that great work”
That the Lord did upon the Egyptians
And the people feared the Lord

“And believed the Lord”
And his servant Moses

Thomas was one of the twelve, now the eleven. He had been with Jesus watching him perform miracles, expelling demons, healing the leprous, was alongside him as he preached and taught praying with him and was one of his most fervent followers. When Jesus hears of Lazarus’ death the other disciples try to prevent him from going to Bethany saying “No, no the Jews are waiting to stone you” but Thomas the twin said “Let us also go that we may die with him.”

Yet despite all these clear signs and Jesus’ own testimony that he would rise again after three days, when Thomas hears from the disciples that they have seen the Lord, he comes to a crisis of faith.



We do not know why Thomas was not in the room with the  others but I prefer to think that this was Jesus’ intent for we learn much from his absence. A week or so later Jesus came again; “Peace be with you”  Jesus of course knew of Thomas’ doubts, there is no upbraiding, but rather like the good shepherd seeking the lost sheep Jesus opens himself up, he opens himself totally to Thomas:

“Put your finger here and see my hands
Reach out your hand and put it in my side.”

Thomas, without placing his fingers or hand in Christ’s body  becomes no longer doubting Thomas but, and as he always will be for me Believing Thomas: “My Lord and my God” he says in complete acceptance not just of Jesus’ presence but of his whole identity as Jesus and God.

The encouragement we draw from this is inestimable; this man who doubted came to be an extraordinary missionary and worked all over the East notably in India where he is particularly celebrated. What hope these two stories give us - we see that many before us with direct  experience of God’s works had moments of panic. “I am not sure, have I made a mistake, can it be true? Should we have stayed with the Egyptians or the non believers?

 Back to Handel for a moment:

And Thomas saw that great work, and believed in the Lord.

Amen.

Easter Sunday - On the first day of the week while it was still dark

I wish I could paint - I do not mean the skimpy pen and wash apologies that fill my sketchbooks but I mean really paint!  I have Rembrandt in mind - There are three Rembrandt paintings from John’s Gospel:

Jesus and the Samaritan woman
The lifting of the cross
Doubting Thomas

But not the one I would like to paint -  emulating his style with layers of paint and with his use of light (which is extraordinary and always illuminates the detail of the story) with all of this I would like to make a canvass  “On the first day of the when it was still dark, Mary came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed.”

Take a moment please to imagine, any Rembrandt that you remember and apply it to this scene: Mary barely lit, the stone rolled away softly glowing, the centre of the miraculous moment like the Father’s hands on the prodigal son or the light on Jesus in the supper at Emmaus. Perhaps your  picture will be like this.

Now many of us will have returned to discover something unexpected, perhaps our car or our bicycle is not where we thought. Panic sets in - or it does with me - am I in the right place? Has it rolled away down the hill? Was it on another floor in that multi-storey? Our first idea is to try to find a rational explanation for what we see. When that fails our second is to tell someone else and see if they can help, Frances where did I leave the car? Mary I imagine went through all these things quickly and in a state of anxiety before deciding that somebody else had interfered with Jesus’ body and rushing to the disciples she says “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb and we do not know where they have laid him.” Our third reaction is to blame someone: Frances, somebody has stolen the car!
Usually we discover the cause of our bewilderment and after all nothing too major has happened we find the right floor,the stolen car is recovered, the insurance pays up - life goes on.

But when Jesus was found everything changed. His resurrection was singular, there has been nothing like it before and nothing like it since. You may perhaps have Lazarus in mind but Lazarus awakened from his grave has again a mortality and is to die again. Jesus was raised from the dead but with a transformed embodiment. Mary does not recognise him until he speaks directly to her calling her name “Mary”

Then she does realise, recognise and the relief flows through her in great waves.
“Rabbouni” she cries - and like a mother finding a child she wants to hold him close to embrace him. Just as we would want to.

Our painting of Mary in the gloaming, in front of a tomb, the stone rolled away has to convey this - that everything has changed most especially our understanding of life, our understanding of death. For this we need a painter of the calibre of Rembrandt to paint the stones, the tomb, the garden, Mary and the mysterious light he would bring to the scene.

The light that allows us in funeral services to say:

Ini sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life through our lord Jesus CHrist who will transform our frail bodies that they may be conformed to his glorious body”

This is the promise, made real of Jesus alive.

Amen

Maundy Thursday Evening

Begin by standing unannounced on a chair

I know that energy equals mass times the square of the speed of light -because my physics teacher did just this - he stood on a chair and told us so.

You do not forget a thing like that.

What has struck me about this passage this year is how  Jesus continued teaching. We are told that he knew that his hour had come and that he loved his friends. I have not been at a farewell supper with quite this poignancy but I think I might anticipate a more sombre tone. And then during supper Jesus did this - like any good lesson he begins by grabbing the disciples attention, not by jumping on a chair, but by getting up from the table, taking off his robe and wrapping a towel around himself.What a shock, what is he doing they would say? And then he pours water into a basin and begins to wash their feet. I do not need to tell you about how menial a task this is, how only the most lowly of the servants would do this,  nor how dusty the roads were - you know all these things and the disciples knew them all too. But now they are focussed on the questions.

Energy equals mass times the square of the speed of light : Jesus the Messiah, the man we call the Son of God is washing my feet - but what could this really mean?
“Do you know what I have done to you?” Jesus asks as he brings them to the threshold of a new understanding. Jesus knows that in a few hours he will be betrayed, will be arrested, that he will walk the path to death, and he absolutely does not stop for knowing all this he is still teaching, still growing his disciples, still taking time to show them what it means.


“I give you a new commandment that you should love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.” 

Jesus spells it out - look over all the things you have seen me do, all the things we have done together, look too at the thing that I am about to do- this is what it is about - change your lives, stop seeking advantage, preferment, an edge over your neighbour, a better place at table, and as I have loved you show love for one another. Here is the great lesson, remember in the time to come that I who you call Lord and teacher washed your feet, and told you to love one another.

You don’t forget a thing like that.


Amen

Palm Sunday 2019

Sermon Palm Sunday April 2019

We do not have a live donkey, well not this year - but maybe in time, maybe next year. I do have a knitted one though and it is a good place to start.

Somehow we have to move in our imagination from this peaceful church, from the blessing of  our carefully fashioned palm crosses from this quietly knitted reminder to the frenetic chaos of Jerusalem at Passover time. Apart from anything else the city was crowded. The historian Josephus writes that two and a half million Jews came for the festival and even if this were a tenfold exaggeration we still struggle to imagine how the city might have held them all. Jews from Babylon with their trailing black robes, from Phoenicia in their tunics and striped drawers, Jews from the plateaux of Anatolia dressed in goats hair cloaks, Persian Jews gleaming in silk brocaded with gold and silver. All these people crowded into the city - many had to sleep outside the town in the suburbs, on the hills, in tents or huts made of branches or perhaps under the open sky as Jesus and his disciples did that night in Gethsemane. Add to this the mixture of power - the Roman occupiers, Temple magnates, Herodian princelings the palaces of Antipas and the high priest Joseph Caiaphas. No wonder then that Pilate who usually ruled his province from Caesarea on the coast came to Jerusalem to supervise it all.




I was in Sheffield one Saturday when Sheffield Wednesday were to play Sheffield United for an early evening kick off. From mid afternoon the pavements outside the bars were thronged there were police riot vans on the street corners, shouting fans and burly truncheon carrying police keeping the factions apart. There was anticipation, enthusiasm, and excitement but above all a tension, a wariness the sensation that a small unexpected spark could set off trouble.

Into such a Jerusalem a town in maelstrom with money changers, the produce sellers and complete with 200,000 sheep waiting sacrifice, Jesus came.

Surrounded by his followers waving palm branches who are crying “Hosanna!” “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.” and amplifying this point Jesus is on a colt, never ridden before in fulfilment of a long anticipated prophecy.

The line between joyous proclamation and provocation is thin - the authorities are on edge - like the police in Sheffield, they want the supporters to have a good time but are keenly watchful - when to step in? Could this all get out of hand? Shall we be in for a riot? I was extremely uncomfortable in the city that afternoon, I crossed the road zigzagging right and left to be away from the surging from the pub doors, looking for a peaceful place to be.




But Jesus, at some point outside the city at Bethphage and Bethany had accepted all that was to take place. From this moment, of sending for the donkey, of receiving it, of mounting it he shows us how he became humble, obedient and willing to do all that his Father asks of him. From now on, from that simple quiet act of getting on a donkey the cogs are enmeshed. The donkey walks steadily from the peace of the countryside to the turmoil, tumult and shocking events of the week to come, the week that will change the world and change our relationship with God forever.

Amen