Christmas Day 2018

John 1, verses 1-14, according to the Street Bible;

Nothing. No light, no time, no substance, no matter – the Voice was there. Before anything moved, mutated or mated, Jesus, God’s Voice, was there with God from the kick off. How come? ‘Cos Jesus, ‘God’s Voice’, is God. Before anything began, they had always been. Before there was even anywhere to be, they were there.

Jesus got the name ‘God’s Voice’ because he just spoke and stuff started. From nothing to everything, sparked only by the Voice. There’s nothing that doesn’t have the phrase ‘made by Jesus’ stamped on it somewhere. His words were life itself, and they lit up people’s lives – his light could blast its way into the dingiest corner, and yet the people who preferred darkness still missed it.

So God sent John Baptiser to raise Jesus’ profile: to lift up the Light. His job spec doesn’t exactly fill a page of A4 – it just reads. ‘Help people take it in and take it on’. Obviously, John’s not the Light: he’s just there to build expectation and commentate when the genuine article makes his entrance and starts lighting things up.

And when he does? Bizarre! No one recognises him! He speaks them into existence, but they don’t recognise him or his voice. He arrives at the front door of his people, and most don’t even peek out of the spyhole to check. The few who take the risk realise who he is, open up and knock a meal together. To these guys he starts doling out adoption papers to sign them up as God’s children. Conceived by human passion? No, by God’s passion!

So God’s Voice gets flesh, blood, skin and bone. He spends time with us; we hang around with him, get to know him, see what he’s like. And? As magnificent, as superb as you’d expect God’s only Son to be…and heaps more! God’s OTT gifts oozing from every pore: everything he does and says rings true.

Sometimes a story is so familiar, so much part of us and our lives and we know it so well, that we don’t really hear it. sometimes we need the story rephrased to make it new, to remember how it felt for it to be new and unfamiliar.

The Street Bible has none of the poetry of John’s gospel but something about it just cuts straight to the heart of the Gospel’s meaning.

Through Advent we’ve been waiting, we’ve been preparing and we’ve been anticipating the birth of Jesus, and now it’s here. The big day. Yet the gospel tells us one thing; he was always here. He’s always been here. Before all things and after all things. He was always in creation, yet not until that tiny baby do we begin to perceive it, to understand it, to fully know it and fully know him.

He always was, but in that outhouse, stable or shed- however you see it- he came physically, he came to be vulnerable and live our frail, yet remarkable, human life. We’ve seen the signposts throughout history and through the scriptures, that this would be the culmination of God’s continuous, creative love.

God sent us the truest reflection of himself, a part of himself, and this reflection was a helpless new-born baby. What does this tell us about our God?

Whilst there’re many things within scripture that are shared with other religions and traditions- such as the creation narrative and great flood narrative- no other tradition has a God who makes them-self this vulnerable. God wanted us to know him, recognise his constant presence in creation, his thirst for justice and equality and this was the way he chose to do it, to live among us- and remember Jesus lived his human life for 30 years before beginning his ministry. 30 years of ordinary, extraordinary human life, and it begins here.

God wanted us to know him and he wanted – wants - to know us. This relationship has always been a two-way thing. The creator of all that is wants a relationship with you- with me- we’re not ordinary and we’re not insignificant because each of us contains a divine spark, the presence of the God is within us. The baby in the manger is the culmination of millions of years of creation, thousands of years of human narrative history and the pinnacle of the love God has tried to communicate to us throughout it all.

As we step back from the enormity of that, we see a family, a new family. A mum, dad and a new baby. A very ordinary story in some ways. We see love and we see relationship. God came to us this way because relationship and connection are all that really matter.

This Christmas, as we contemplate the mystery, the enormity and the overwhelming outpouring of love, let’s remember to connect and reconnect, to build and rebuild relationships, because our God is the reconciling, radical God of relationships. If we take our lead from the one who created us and chose to live amongst us, we see that this is what we created for, and this is God’s will for our lives.

Day 11

In my Father's house are many rooms;
if it were not so,
would I have told you
that I go to prepare a place for you?

(John 14:2)

It seems quite a coincidence that this verse has come up today from Pastor Patty, from the Mystical gospel of John, as it's from a passage so widely used at funerals.
Today we gathered together, a community set apart and bound by grief, to say goodbye to our lovely Revd. Huw's remarkable wife, Nat. I'd only known her since August but found her to be warm, funny, open and just a delight to be around.
We didn't have John 14 today but Philippians 4:
Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

By way of a meditation I leave you with the poem which was read at the service:

"God" by Andrew Rudd
God
doesn't have to knock
uses the front door key
doesn't check how clean the house is

knows how to use the kettle
and where the spoons go
washes up

is quite content to sit
and chatter about issues
of no importance

ar just be quiet

Spiritual Diet Plan

Sermon preached 16.8.15 based on Proverbs 9:1-6, Psalm 34:9-14, Ephesians 5:15-20 and John 6:51-58.

My routine each day when I arrive on the ward where I work is to go straight to the kitchen and make myself a cup of coffee. This follows the travel mug of coffee I’ve made at home and drunk on my drive in. I love my morning coffee, and those who know me quite well might allude to the fact that I’m not the cheerful and kind soul you all know me to be until I’ve had it.

On Tuesday when I arrived into the ward kitchen, following my daily routine, my colleague was making what looked like a cup of herbal tea. When I remarked upon it she declared she was detoxing, had given up caffeine (a thought that would fill me with horror), and was drinking special detox “Boo tea…all the celebs are drinking it!” I was informed.

I’m not really that well in touch with celebrity culture but this isn’t the first diet fad to hit the ward- we’ve had the usual Weight Watchers and Slimming World, but then there’s been Liter Life, Slim fast, The Atkins Diet, Blood Group diet, magic water and the 5:2 diet. I myself- I know, unbelievable- have tried some of these.

There’s also been the exercise regimes that have spread through the ward- running clubs, boot camp, mountain biking, spinning, tough mudder, yoga, pilates- I’m exhausted just saying that- all in pursuit of being of being the healthiest, trimmest, best version of ourselves. To be our best.

These physical interventions also have psychological benefits- we feel better about ourselves, we have more energy, but there’s often a downside. The latest fad diet is often hard to maintain, you give in to temptation, or get fed up of being “good”. My friend with her Boo tea was scuppered even before lunchtime- as we so often are at work- by grateful relatives with a large delivery of cupcakes, which is probably why despite having a ward 150m long I’m still not slim.

After all this talk of food you might be feeling a bit peckish, and maybe doubly so after today’s readings; In our Proverbs reading we were invited to drink the wine and eat the bread of wisdom, The psalm alluded to the Lord feeding our spiritual hunger and the Ephesians reading warned us to be filled with the Holy Spirit rather than the alcoholic sort.

The diet and fitness regimes popular amongst my colleagues serve to improve our physical health, and as I’ve mentioned there are psychological benefits, but scripture is rich with metaphors of hunger and thirst which seek to show us how to improve our spiritual health and get our souls into shape.

The Gospel reading has Jesus inviting us to share in the ultimate spiritual diet- to eat his flesh and drink his blood, “the one who eats this bread will live forever”. The diet Jesus has to offer us is not a quick fix for the here and now- it’s a plan to get us fit for eternity. In our culture we’re so keen to satisfy our other appetites- like the hunger to be fitter or slimmer, to “look better” and to live longer- that it’s easy to neglect our spiritual hunger.

Jesus reveals in the gospel that he is the one who can really sustain us. We try to feed our other appetites and hope that this will bring us happiness, and we may have tried to feed our spiritual hunger in other ways, or by other spiritual practices. Like the attempt to find the perfect weight loss or exercise plan, it doesn’t meet our needs- it doesn’t feed our hunger or quench our thirst. We remain spiritually unsatisfied, unfulfilled- hungry and thirsty for something only Christ can give us.

Today’s gospel is a reminder that the Word Became flesh, and that flesh was sacrificed to sustain us. To Jesus’ audience “body” would have meant the entire person, and “blood” the absolute essence of life. Jesus offers and indeed gave himself entirely.

Flesh and blood underline Jesus’ humanity, whilst echoing back to the mystical beginning of John’s gospel. Jesus, word made flesh, is the spirit of God’s Wisdom inviting us to “Come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed. Lay aside immaturity, and live, and walk in the way of insight” reminding us that “those who seek the Lord lack nothing that is good”.

And yet if we take Jesus literally, trying to live solely by what God gives to us, we know it will fail because it’s not just about what God gives to us. It’s about us abiding in Christ and him abiding in us. It has to be reciprocal and mutual. This is no fad spiritual diet that will leave us craving for other things. If we fully enter into that mutual abiding- that communion- which we recognise and celebrate in the Eucharist, this continued repetition and reminder we experience feeds us, nourishes us – abides and grows within us, drawing us deeper into communion with God and also with each other.

We each have our personal, reciprocal relationship with God but we also have it with each other. Our faith is corporate. Jesus abides within and sustains us so we are able to carry out his will in the world as the body of Christ. To be our best means growing into the person God intends us to be.

Part of this includes engaging with the people and culture around us. My mission as a minister in the secular world means connecting with people who haven’t or wouldn’t step into a church. Knowing the latest fad diet or exercise regime is all part of this. Finding out what people thirst and hunger for- what sustains and nourishes them, what they connect with, and looking to see where God is in that, and where he can be for them.

Our meeting in communion here nourishes us to go out and take God with us, whoever we go, to whoever we meet. We have the experience of true food and true drink, and in the rich tradition of biblical hospitality it’s our job to go out and share it.

Chosen, Protected, Sanctified, Unified

I'm still always shocked when my sermons are well received. Sermon writing is something I really struggle with but it is, ultimately, rewarding. Today's sermon is based upon Acts 1:15-17 & 21-26, 1 John 5:9-13 and John 17:6-19:

According to my children an horrific part of my childhood still goes on in schools today- the dreaded ritual of picking teams. Two children are asked to take it in turns to pick their side. Now I’m sure that some members of our congregation are, or were, wonderfully athletic, but I never was, so the usual scenario was that I would be the last one to be chosen- the public humiliation of being the kid no team wants.

There was another school ritual- the merit badge. Each week I would hope beyond hope that I’d be picked, knowing I’d tried my best, but rarely would it be me. Are you feeling sorry for me yet?

On holiday one year my parents entered me into some sort of beauty contest, and I didn't do too well in that either. I grew up knowing I was someone who didn't get picked. I wasn't chosen. I wasn't special.

I was on a retreat last weekend and one of the themes was our collective chosenness, not just us as ordinands but all Christians. We’re all taken, or chosen, by God to be sent out into the world. This is echoed in the gospel today where Jesus states the disciples were sent to him by God. Chosen by God. It turns out my childhood assumptions were very wrong- I might not have felt like I was chosen, but as a Christian I, and therefore all of us, are chosen by God for a very specific purpose, as the disciples were.

The point we’re at in today’s gospel reading is just before Jesus is arrested. He knows what’s to come, that he must die, yet instead of preparing himself and contemplating what he will endure, he’s focused on the disciples, what will happen after he’s gone, what will happen to this chosen group of people whom he loves.

He’s preparing for his death by praying for his friends, and specifically praying for their protection as he knows times will be tough. Their association with this radical and subversive man has left them very vulnerable, but even though Jesus will die the disciples’ job, the purpose for which God had chosen them, is far from over. Jesus prays that God will protect them from the “evil one”, yet presumably this protection isn't a physical one, we know many of these men will die violently for their faith, it's spiritual protection they need – protection from anything that might weaken their faith, and stop them fulfilling their purpose. This protection will soon arrive in the form of the Holy Spirit.

So they were chosen by God and protected by the Holy Spirit.

After praying for their protection Jesus sanctifies the disciples He sanctifies them in truth, the truth that Jesus was sent from God and that the father and Son have a unity of purpose.

Chosen by God, Protected by the Spirit, Sanctified by Christ. Chosen, Protected, Sanctified. These 3 actions fulfill the other part of Jesus’ prayer: “that they are one as we are one”. Jesus prays that the disciples are unified.

Chosen, Protected, Sanctified, Unified. We too are chosen by God, protected by the Holy Spirit and sanctified by Christ. It might be difficult for us as individuals to get our heads around that - we each know our individual brokenness and the reasons we might feel unworthy, but as well as individuals we're part of a community and we're also part of the worldwide church or Body of Christ. We might find it easier to recognise how as a body of people we’re a chosen people, a protected people and a sanctified people, yet despite all parts of the body needing to work as a unit we’d be stretching things to say we - the global church-  are a unified people.

Often the Christians we see in the media are those which hold extreme views, one way or the other. Extremely conservative, extremely Evangelical, extremely liberal. They've often been drafted in specifically to generate debate. It’s easy to feel disappointed that they've been chosen to represent “Christians” as an homogeneous group, knowing that our own interpretation of Christian belief don’t match theirs.  We’re all Christians, but our views are not unified.

I’m sure many of us have, at some point, attended churches of other denominations, or been members of other churches, and we’ll each have our own reasons for now being here instead of there. There’s probably lots of things we could identify about other churches that don’t match how we think about our faith, things we’re not unified on.

And what about the controversies which threaten to split the Anglican Communion? The ongoing debates around sexuality may still cause the Western and African parts of the Communion to separate.

Within the Church of England I've read accounts of very un-Christ-like altercations between representatives of pro-diversity church groups and conservative church groups. Our in-fighting over sex, gender and sexuality is a cause of bemusement to the outside world and presents us as far from unified.

There are, of course, many other issues preventing us from presenting a unified church, both locally and globally. So how can we ever be a unified church?

Unity doesn't have to mean we’re unified in all our views and opinions, which would be nigh on impossible. The Western Church split from the Eastern Church, the protestant from catholic and then more splits, more denominations, more schisms, yet we do remain the worldwide church- how then are we unified?

We must look back to our chosenness, our purpose, and ask ourselves- chosen for what? The answer lies in our reading from Acts. We’re chosen to bear witness. Despite our division we’re all called to bear witness to the risen Christ, and, as John writes, to have the testimony within our hearts.

We don’t, and we can’t, agree on every aspect of our faith as so much of it is personal to us, but our faith is also communal, and as a community we can be unified even when we disagree.

“As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world”. This is where we find our unity- just like the disciples we’re sent out chosen, sent out protected and sent out sanctified, unified in our witness to the one God, the perfect unity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.