2009 Sermons of Rev David Jenkins
From January to May
Sermons on this page
1. PLANNING AHEAD .................................. first preached on 4 January 2009
2. GOD’S PLANS ......................................... first preached on 11 January 2009
3. VOCATION ........................................... first preached on 1 February 2009
4. OUR WORST FEARS CONFIRMED ........... first preached on 29 March 2009
5. FINISHED OR JUST ABOUT TO START? .. first preached on 12 April 2009
6. CONNECTIONS ....................................... first preached on 3 May 2009
7. STAY CONNECTED ................................... first preached on 10 May 2009
(... from June - Dec ) (...Christmas and NY eve)
PLANNING AHEADA sermon first preached on 4 January 2009
Our theme this month is “Planning Ahead”. As well as seeking to live fully in the present, it is natural for us to make our plans. What have you got planned this year so far? Any holidays? Any celebrations? Any jobs around the house? Any work projects?
As a church we have some very exciting plans- the Community Centre should be completed before Easter, then the church is due to be decorated and improved.
A major Flower Festival is being planned, a big event to launch the opening of the newly refurbished Church and Centre, a Circuit Songs of Praise Service, and concerts by Carlo Curley and the person who’s speaking to you now-and lots more besides!
As well as all that, how we use the Community Centre is really significant. One of our current main aims to provide a safe place for homeless people.
Many of us through our work are constantly living with plans and preparation. For me preparing the next acts of worship and the Circuit Plan is an ongoing focus. And what plans are you involved in at work?
Plans are fine when they act as a basic guide of where we hope to be moving on to in life. Where they are not so fine is when they become too rigid. Changing circumstances in people’s lives shouldn’t be forced into inflexible patterns.
But alongside all our plans are God’s plans -“Man proposes but God disposes” -and it’s unwise to live as if our plans have the last word on life. Listen to this insight from James’ letter in the New Testament-
“Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a town and spend a year there, doing business and making money”. Yet you do not even know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wishes, we will live and do this or that.”
As James warns us not to be presumptuous in our arrogance, so does Jesus in his conclusion to the parable about the rich man who has pulled down his barns to build bigger ones and then says to himself, “You have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry”. But God said to him, “You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?”
Not only are we wise if all our plans are provisional. We are also wise if we take into account that God’s plans for human life may be other than ours; the God whose thoughts are not our thoughts, whose ways are not as our ways, but are infinitely higher and wiser than ours.
We get a glimpse of God’s staggering plans for human life from the first chapter of the letter to the Ephesians.
God plans to give us every possible spiritual benefit as citizens of heaven. God has chosen us-even before the foundation of the world-to become in Christ his holy and blameless children living within his constant care. God plans for all human history to be consummated in Christ, so that everything that exists in the entire universe shall find its perfection and fulfilment in him. God’s plans for us leave even our most ambitious plans for ourselves far behind.
In answer to the question, “Does life have a meaningful purpose and a destiny for which it is right to hold out hope?” there is a massive YES from God.
And this is despite all signs to the contrary-despite the sin and sorrow and suffering of human life, God has the most wonderful intentions for us and the capability of bringing them about.
I find myself believing one thing about God’s plans for us and not believing another. I believe that God has a plan, an intention, a destiny for each of us which far exceeds the most wonderful thing we could ever envisage.
But I don’t believe that human life is so mapped out that we are not free to choose our own path. I do not believe that God dictates the course of human life so that we are not free to make our own decisions. I do not believe that everything that happens to us is “meant to be”, whether that it is something enjoyable like the good fortune of meeting a very suitable person with whom to fall in love, or whether that it is something awful like being in a car accident.
The plans of God neither override free decision nor the basic changes and chances of life. God’s plans are not a detailed blueprint so much as a long term goal. And God will get us to that goal-whatever may lie between.
That’s the dynamic hope of what God plans for us. It could be that, because, like me, you may reject a lot of the thinking about “Everything that happens to us is meant to be”, it would be easy to let go of all thoughts about a plan, a purpose for human life. It would be really sad if we let go of that, because it is so important and it adds considerable hope to the significance of our lives- in the present and the future.
Go on making our plans, but with the proviso that, should they not coincide with what God plans for us, they would be best being modified or scrapped altogether. Go on making our plans, thinking ahead, preparing thoughtfully and carefully for all contingencies, but realising that God’s plans for us leave all our own planning way behind. And thank God they do-plans beyond what eye has seen and ear has heard-plans beyond the heart’s conceiving-plans beyond our contemporary experience-plans far more wonderful than the scope of human imagination.
As we make our plans may we do so alongside a growing trust in God, the architect of the universe whose loving intentions for humankind belong to the realm of utter perfection.
GOD’S PLANS
A Sermon first preached on 11 January 2009
How do we know what God’s plans are? No one would dare to give an absolutely detailed blueprint of the plans of God! Part of the limitation of being human is that frequently we have to say of God’s intentions, “I don’t know what they are”. Inevitably they are a part of the mystery of the being of the Creator of all things.
God’s question to Job, “Were you there at the foundation of the universe?” should help us towards a proper perspective; as should Paul’s questions, “Who has known the mind of the Lord? Who has been his adviser?” Paul says that God’s judgements are unsearchable and his ways are inscrutable. So does that leave us with nothing to say about the purposes of God, either through hushed adoration or silent agnosticism?
To some extent it does just that. The only glimpses of the Divine Creator’s plans are those he chooses to reveal. The three readings today give some indication, some glimpses of the eternal purposes of God. First the passage from Genesis Chapter One- a vital part of God’s intention has been bringing into being an orderly, purposeful universe. God didn’t need us to do that!
The second reading from Mark Chapter One, shows Jesus at a point of dedication in his life. God’s plans reach a fulfilment, a focus in the coming of Jesus.
The third reading from Isaiah Chapter 42 is one in which Jesus found clarification of his role. The servant, upheld and chosen by God, with the Spirit of God inside, brings forth justice to the nations. In quiet faithfulness God’s servant is to be a light to the nations, to open eyes that are blind, to bring prisoners out from the dungeon. Jesus fulfilled these aims, which helped to shape his ministry.
Through our Bible readings today we can glimpse some of the intentions of God. How can we respond to God’s plans? How can we identify with them and become part of them? God’s plans are directed towards the entire universe –its ongoing creation and sustaining its life. Our role will be a very limited one here (!), but we can be linked with God’s purposes in creation- through our own creativity, and our care for the part of creation for which we have responsibility.
What is required of us is a sense of appreciation and wonder, through all that we continue to discover. Alongside wonder and gratitude for the gift of life, there needs to be a cherishing of life-valuing one another at an increasing depth of respect and cherishing and caring for the life of this planet.
God’s purposes achieve a special point of concentration in the coming of Jesus. Our understanding of what God is about receives its greatest clarity when we set the words and life of Jesus as the guide and pattern of our own.
For God’s plans to continue to be fulfilled, there is a great need for those of us who are called by Christ’s name to live out our discipleship, to keep Jesus at the centre of our shared life as the one we seek to follow; to continue to learn from him day by day.
God’s plans include the pursuit of justice to the nations. Just as this became central to Jesus’ self understanding, so it can become a vital role for us too. The need for the pursuit of justice to the nations is as strong as ever. In so many parts of the world we see justice flagrantly denied. Only last year the Burmese Government stifled constructive protest, and then acted so slowly and callously to restore order after a huge natural disaster.
Even with the eyes of the world on them at the Olympics, China still practised human rights abuses –and then there is Robert Mugabe, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan, and, often hidden from public attention, continued abuse of people who are subjected to inhuman and brutal treatment. Justice to the nations remains a very pressing need.
The vocation which Jesus saw as being laid on him is our vocation too. The opportunity he grasped to identify his energy with God’s purpose is our opportunity too.
And the pursuit of justice for the nations is not confined to overseas. A recent UNICEF report described British children as the most emotionally deprived in the western world. The research compared 21 western nations and examined the levels of self-worth, confidence and general well being.
What can we do to bring self worth and confidence and emotional reassurance to our children? In our contacts with children –through our families and friends and through the youth groups of our church, can we be offering levels of affirmation and understanding which will help to counteract the negative pressures our children face?
Although we cannot penetrate completely to the hidden purposes of God, we know quite enough to make an intelligent response to what God requires of us. Way back in the prophet Micah’s writings is this insight-“What does the Lord require from you but to do justice, and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God?”
We know enough about the plans of God to identify with them- to care for creation, to follow Jesus and to act justly. Where we fall short in all these areas, may God in Christ strengthen us to see him more clearly, love him more dearly and follow him more nearly day by day.
VOCATION
A Sermon first preached on 1 February 2009
1. A man had been referred to a brain specialist. “You really need a transplant”, the specialist told him. “We can’t do it on the National Health. We’ve got 3 possibilities- you could have the brain of a leading military strategist. That would cost you £100,000. Or the brain of a leading politician for £200,000. Or you could have the brain of a Methodist Minister for £300,000.” “Why is the brain of a Methodist Minister worth so much?” the man asked, and the specialist replied, “Hardly used”.
2. Actually I love being a Methodist Minister. It is the only thing I have ever really wanted to be. So I’m incredibly fortunate to have received a very strong sense of calling, affirmed by the Church and confirmed every day of my life. Of course there are frustrations-I mean fancy being your Minister for a start! But truthfully I am very happy and privileged to be a Minister here.
3. On the road from High Wycombe to Aylesbury is the pedestal roundabout and beside the roundabout you can see a pedestal, a raised plinth where an important person could stand. I don’t think there’s any chance that you would put your Minister on a pedestal and treat him as if he were a more exalted being than anyone else. I have never known such a cheeky bunch of people, from the oldest to the youngest! If you were to treat your minister with “due deference”, I’d probably need to lie down in a darkened room to get over the shock!
4. Being a Minister is an extraordinary privilege. This is how one person described what he called “the romance of the ministry”- “to watch over growing lives, to meet the sorrows of many people, to be persuaded of the influence you can wield, to find yourself drawn by the deep ties of a spiritual affection, to have your days filled with duties which are perpetually fresh with all their sameness, to have the right of entrance to many homes and hearts, to be able to speak freely on the deepest things in life, to find yourself always confronted by tasks which are too great to be measured-what more romantic life on earth can be lived than that? You may have a baptism, a wedding and a funeral in the same week, and each of these is touching life at its intimate centre”.
5. It is indeed a staggering and humbling privilege to be called to be a minister of Jesus Christ, the King of Kings.
6. But that privilege is not confined to me. This ministry is one which we share.
7. Part of my calling is that, through word and sacrament, I am to see that the whole church exercises its ministry as the people of God. The Methodist Church does not believe that only one person in any situation is a minister or priest, but that all of us have a ministry, that there is a “priesthood of all believers”. It is the whole people of God, and not just a chosen few, who are described in the New Testament as “a royal priesthood”. In the New Testament there is no clear distinction made between the minister and the church because the one simply merges into the other.
8. When I was ordained I was told, “You are called to the ordained ministry within the ministry of the whole church”.
9. It is extraordinary that people still speak of “the role of the laity in the church” when the laity constitutes at least 99% of the church! The expansion of Christianity through the ages owes more to the witness of the people of the church than to the work of “the clergy”.
10. Part of my role is to encourage the release of the gifts you have-the kind of gifts that clergy are often expert in suppressing!
11. I want to draw attention to one particular calling within the Church - that of Local Preacher. Our Circuit currently has one Local Preacher in training and we need many more people to serve in this way. Might this be an area to which God is calling you? Please let me know if it is.
12. But I don’t want to centre thinking about vocation to forms of service within the Church.
13. This is what I’ve written in our church magazine “Link”:- When we use a word like “vocation” we tend to think of people in particular jobs- ministers, nurses, teachers. But isn’t vocation and calling much wider than being limited to a handful of caring roles? Can’t we usefully offer service to God and to other people through the jobs we do? Can’t we discover a sense of purpose when we are studying or when we are retired?
Vocation and calling are to do with a life attitude of what we perceive God to be, how we interact with God, and what we believe about our own place in the world. Many people grossly underestimate the value of who they are and of what they can offer. Many people would be astonished to discover how much difference they make to the lives of others, and how much that is appreciated. In exploring the theme of “vocation”, my hope is that we will recognise more of what our gifts are and how we can best use them.”
14. There is a tendency to speak about certain people as having a vocation and of other people as simply having jobs. For example, of Raymond and Dorcas, who are becoming members of the Church today, it would be easy to say “Dorcas has a vocation because she is working with mentally ill people; whereas Raymond simply has a job because he is ensuring that trains on London Underground run safely”. But hang on –don’t they both have jobs? And couldn’t both those jobs be a vocation?
Next time you’re on London Underground be grateful for the skill, concentration and care that lies behind the arrival of each train and consider that maintaining passenger safety can be a real vocation.
15. Isn’t it a vocation, a sharing in ministry, to do our work well, to aim at having supportive relationships with those you work with, to raise the level of spiritual consciousness in the situation where you are?
16. Are you the kind of person who is known by the effort and quality of your work? Are you the kind of person who is known to be honest and friendly, a person of integrity? Are you the kind of person that colleagues are likely to approach to discuss matters about which they are concerned? This is exercising ministry where we are.
17. All of us are called to mediate Christ’s care to others. All of us are called, as Luther put it, “to be Christ to our neighbour”.
18. To some extent the ordained minister is seen as the representative person of the Church and of Jesus, but surely the whole Christian community can represent Jesus more fully than one person can? We are all representatives, ambassadors of Christ.
19. Listen to what Paul Tournier, a Swiss Doctor, said -“For the fulfilment of his purpose God needs more than bishops, pastors and missionaries. He needs mechanics, gardeners and street sweepers, dressmakers and cooks, tradesmen, physicians, philosophers, judges and typists. I do not serve God only in the brief moments during which I am taking part in a religious service, or reading the Bible, or saying my prayers, or discussing the meaning of life with a patient or friend. I serve him quite as much when I am giving a patient an injection, or writing a prescription, or giving some good advice. Or again, I serve him quite as much when I am reading the newspaper, laughing at a joke, or mending a plug. I serve him by taking an interest in everything, because he is interested in everything, because he has created everything and has put me in his creation so that I may participate in it fully. As Archbishop William Temple said, “It is a great mistake to think that God is interested only, or even primarily in religion!”
20. So does that mean that you could have a vocation too? Could there be a sense of calling, of being engaged in the service of God and of human beings in whatever we are doing-not only in paid employment, not only in voluntary work, not only in whatever we are doing, but in our very being, our way of life? My colleagues and I have frequently to remind ourselves that our calling is not simply about a list of different activities- visiting people, taking services, leading meetings, but is about a way of life, a way of being-and couldn’t that be so for you as well?
21. Now here’s a really special thought-each person has his or her own vocation and unique destiny. This is how Cardinal Newman put it, “God has created me to do him some special service. He has committed some work to me which he has not committed to another. I have my mission; and though I may never fully realise it in this world, I will be told it in the next.” Each of us has a mission, a vocation, a destiny which we may not fully realise in this life- a fascinating, humbling, exciting and awesome thought! It is worth asking ourselves, “Am I seeking to discover what is God’s will for my life: to work out with him what is my specific vocation?”
22. As well as our own unique individual calling, we share a common calling as Christians. Here are some insights from the Scriptures- “we are called to God’s kingdom and his glory, to one great hope, to eternal life”-and as well as what could be called that long term calling, we are called to a way of life described as holiness, to freedom, to loving, to following Jesus.
23. In recent years the Methodist Church has described what our life together is about by using the term “Our Calling” –“The Church exists to increase awareness of God’s presence and to celebrate God’s love; to help people to grow and learn as Christians through mutual support and care; to be a good neighbour to people in need and to challenge injustice; to make more followers of Jesus”. Our shared calling is realised through worship, learning and caring, service and evangelism.
24. The New Testament word for “minister” means servant.
25. In what ways do you see your own ministry? How can you serve Jesus Christ and the people with whom you come into contact? What can you offer to life?
26. Let us seek, through our unique vocations and our shared ministry to serve God in the strength he gives to the best of our ability.
OUR WORST FEARS CONFIRMED
A sermon first preached on 29th. March 2009
What are the things we dread most?
Any major experience of loss can affect us greatly.
Loss can come to us in a variety of ways-losing someone very close to us-from being united as a couple, from being in a complete family, from being in a close circle of friends to living with the bleakness of bereavement and its restless yearning and missing, casting a cloud over the whole of our life;
Losing our health- from being physically fit to learning to live with long term illness or losing some physical ability-becoming disabled in some way;
Becoming aware of our own mortality-from making plans for the future with a measure of confidence and certainty, to the shaking of all confidence and learning to live with uncertainty;
Losing our work- from being immersed in our work, to losing our job, our status, our structure, our role and identity;
Losing our faith-from being close to God and sure of the things in which we have believed, to being plagued with doubts, where the whole credibility of what we had believed seems to have collapsed and God seems far distant.
The reason for looking at all these cheerful themes is that today is Passion Sunday, and we hope to find some insight and strength as we reflect on Jesus’ experience of suffering and loss.
From that reading we heard from John’s Gospel (John 12:20-33) there are 3 of the statements attributed to Jesus which may be of particular help -
One of them is where Jesus says, “Now is my soul troubled”. Jesus articulates what he is feeling. He faces the reality of his situation, with all its potential for loss.
If you articulate what you feel rather than bottling it up; if you face the reality of your situation, rather than denying it; if you recognise the times when your soul is troubled, that’s not being wimpish-it’s being real. We sometimes avoid opening up any area where we feel emotionally vulnerable. We are afraid of losing control. We are afraid of being misunderstood. We are reluctant to appear not to be coping.
Actually it is in facing and voicing what we feel that we may be coping very well. The release of the tears we struggle hard to hide can be part of the catharsis, the healing which we need.
We all cope with loss in our own way. There may not be one way which is better than another, but there are unhealthy, pathological ways of reacting to grief. The person who remains permanently embittered towards their marriage partner from whom they are now divorced, hasn’t moved on. The person who refuses to acknowledge their disability cannot begin to respond to the challenges of living with and overcoming their limitations. One way of allowing ourselves to receive healing and to come to terms with our loss is to express our feelings about the reality of what we are facing. “Now is my soul troubled”.
It’s the most natural thing in the world to want to run away from any difficult and painful situation. Jesus feels this too-“What should I say-“Father, save me from this hour?” But he goes beyond the desire to run away. He rises to the challenges that are before him. “No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour”.
John’s Gospel does not describe Jesus’ struggle in the garden of Gethsemane as the other Gospels do. That struggle is related through this one verse instead. In the other Gospels Jesus says, “Take this cup away from me, yet not what I want, but what you want”. Here it is, “What should I say-“Father, save me from this hour?” “No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour”.
In facing what he dreads most, Jesus even glimpses something purposeful in it. There is courage and determination in his resolve to face his finest hour.
He had a choice. Most of the time, when calamities come our way, we have no choice in the matter. Some of the losses we face creep up on us slowly. Particularly hard to deal with are the ones which hit us out of the blue and change our whole pattern of life overnight. These are situations we have not chosen, do not want and may have been deeply dreading.
Even if we don’t have a choice because this thing has come upon us, in one important sense we do have a choice-we can choose how to react to it.
Like Jesus, we could find courage, determination and resolve to face the huge challenges before us.
There is another focus for our thought in something else Jesus says- “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain, but if it dies, it bears much fruit”. “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself”. Jesus sees even his death as having something to contribute to other people.
Although I have been comparing Jesus’ situation with our own, the situation we each face is unique to us.
Certainly Jesus’ trials and death were unique to his situation. His death has been recognised by countless millions of people in subsequent generations to have saving significance for the whole of humanity, in ways we can acknowledge but never fully explain.
Our situation is not identical with his. But possibly there is one question that might link them together. Could our experience of loss, of redundancy, of illness, of disability, of dying, of bereavement become a means through which we can offer something to other people? We wonder how we could possibly do this when such experiences highlight our greatest vulnerability. But perhaps our vulnerability itself is one of the things we have to offer.
If we go through major experiences of loss, then I hope that these reflections on Passion Sunday will have something to offer us. I hope that, even as we recognise the uniqueness of Jesus’ situation and our own, we might still see points of identification between our sense of loss and his.
I hope that we can find ways of articulating our feelings and acknowledging the reality of what we are facing, recognising where our souls are troubled.
I hope that we will find the qualities we need, courage and determination among them, to face our greatest challenges.
I also hope that there may be something about the way we face our loss that can inspire and encourage someone else in facing theirs.
Often people will tell me how much it means to them to know that they are being prayed for by others, and they can be very moved when they become aware that the whole church has been praying for them.
It can also mean a great deal to take on board that one of the pictures of the risen, ascended Jesus is that he prays for us. Because he knows our lives at first hand, that is an extraordinary source of strength.
Facing loss, facing the things we most dread, are probably the hardest challenges we will ever face. Who knows how we will react? Even though acute loneliness is part of our loss, sensing that we are not alone, and that the One who stands alongside us has endured what goes beyond human telling, may well give us strength we had not expected and courage we will undoubtedly need.
FINISHED OR JUST ABOUT TO START?
A sermon first preached on Easter Sunday 12 April 2009
Jesus gave a cry from the cross, “It is finished".
It is a cry of relief. The awful pain I have been suffering is over now. Sometimes death can be a relief, a release from a person’s horrific suffering.It is a cry of triumph. My life’s work is finished. All I set out to achieve has reached completion. The aim of a human being living a perfectly dedicated life to God has been accomplished. All the attempts of evil to destroy the power of love’s endurance have been defeated.
Looking at those words from the perspective of Easter Sunday, there’s another way to interpret them. “Finished, or just about to start?” Not “it is over”, but “It’s just beginning”.
In John Masefield’s play, “The Trial of Jesus”, the wife of Pontius Pilate asks the centurion in charge of the crucifixion of Jesus, “Do you think he is dead?” “No, lady, I don’t”. “Then where is he?” “Let loose in the world, lady, where neither Roman nor Jew can stop his truth”.
Finishing points can often be starting points. When my son was born, my wife was having a hard and painful labour. I felt tears of relief that in his birth, her pain was finished. But, at the very same moment, his life was beginning.
How many endings can also be beginnings?
In our service today we’re singing a hymn by Fred Pratt Green. He was a Methodist Minister. When he retired, it might have been thought that his active ministry was finished. But it was in retirement that he started writing poetry, including a series of great hymns, which are his most enduring legacy to the church.
In our church here, the work on the Community Centre could be said to have finished-at least the contractor’s work is over and the balcony has been cleared for worship today. There’s more to be done in the church and Community Centre during the next couple of months and then we really can say it’s finished. The finishing of that major piece of work means that all our other major work, some of which has been kept on hold for so long, is about to start.
One door may need to close before a new door of opportunity can open. One chapter may need to finish before a new one starts.
This is the day of resurrection. The old has gone. The new has come. Today marks the quiet history-changing moment which means that life will never be the same again.
May the God of new beginnings, enable us to find fresh openings in what may have come to an end for us.
Finished, or just about to start?
BELIEVING IS SEEING?
A Sermon first preached on 26 April 2009
There is one thought that struck me on reading through this passage from Luke’s Gospel (Luke 24:36b-48), and that is, how people needed to understand something before they could see it.
While Jesus’ disciples thought they were seeing a ghost they couldn’t properly see the actual person in front of them. Their understanding of what was happening needed to be altered before they could actually see. It seemed necessary for them to touch him and to watch him eat before they could mentally take on board that this was the real person, Jesus, alongside them.
He also needed to inform their understanding by “opening their minds to understand the scriptures”. It was by interpreting to them how he had fulfilled what was written about him in the law of Moses, the prophets and the psalms, that he enabled them to see that, what they had thought was his failure, was actually his triumph.
He had needed to do something similar for the two travelling towards Emmaus. “Beginning with Moses and the all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures”. When they reached Emmaus and he was at the table with them, took bread, blessed and broke it and gave it to them their eyes were opened and they recognised him. Understanding came before recognition. They needed to believe in order to see.
That’s the opposite way round from how we frequently perceive things- “seeing is believing”, we say, as Thomas would have said –“unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe”.
But actually we may see a great deal without really taking it in. As Elizabeth Barrett Browning expressed it,
“Earth’s crammed with heaven
And every common bush afire with God;
But only he who sees, takes off his shoes
-the rest sit around it and pluck blackberries”.
TS Eliot in his poem “Four Quartets” states a truth that so often applies to our lives,
“We had the experience, but missed the meaning”.
We will only glimpse the meaning behind the experience when we understand, when our minds are opened, when our eyes are opened and we see.
The first disciples were not only grappling with a new experience in having the resurrected Jesus before them. They were also coming to terms with a new concept that helped to explain that experience- a new way of understanding what it meant to be the Messiah, a new way of taking on board what Jesus had done. The interpretation was necessary for them to appreciate what was happening to them.
So often we live with distorted perceptions. So many programmes we watch, including the News, may give
certain slants on events that have happened, which may not correspond to the reality.
We can all give selective accounts of what has happened in our own lives, highlighting some things and ignoring others. We rarely tell it whole.
How we perceive things affects how we approach them.
If a child is told something is nasty or dangerous he may approach with caution; if he’s told or shown that something’s OK, he’s likely to approach it in the same way. If you stroke a sheep at the farm open day, he’s more likely to do so than if you avoid the animal and say things like “dirty and messy”.
When faith often gets such a bad press, part of our shared role might be concerned with correcting mistaken impressions.
When people experience something significant, but don’t know what to make of it –“we had the experience but missed the meaning”, part of our shared role is to interpret the significance of what they have gone through.
Believing is seeing.
Understanding may often need to precede realisation.
This is where the whole area of Christian instruction through J Team, through worship, through study groups, House and fellowship groups can be so important. This is where the new initiative Step Forward can be so valuable for us.
Opening our minds can open our eyes and open our hearts.
When the disciples understood they saw. When they saw they acted.
Jesus sent them out as his witnesses, to proclaim his truth to all the nations when they had first understood that truth and then seen it for themselves.
They needed open minds. How open are we to receiving new truth?
I am aware of Dr. Sangster’s warning, “The ever open mind is like the ever open drain: it collects a great deal of rubbish!” There can be dangers in the stance of perpetual open-mindedness that doesn’t actually commit us to anything. But what virtue can there be in a closed mind?
We need an openness to God which may enable us to believe and to see- to receive revelation, however startling and new it may be. The alternative to the open mind is the prejudiced mind, and there can be a considerable amount of prejudice in us. Prejudice builds up inbuilt defences against any new revelation of truth.
The alternative to having open eyes is having blinded eyes. We pick the blackberries but do not see how the bush is afire with God. As Helen Keller put it, “we can go through this enchanted world with a barren stare”.
The alternative to having open hearts is to be hard hearted. It was written of the Pharaoh whom Moses approached saying “let my people go”, that he hardened his heart. Despite all the evidence of his eyes, he became increasingly stubborn.
The alternative to being responsive is to be calcified in the paralysis of unresponsiveness; to be frozen in the inertia of those who are not part of the answer to the world’s needs, but part of the problem, resisting progress like a road block, resisting the claims of love and justice like a brick wall.
We are called to be witnesses of what we have seen and heard and handled- as John puts it in his first letter, “We declare to you what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life”.
In order to help other people to believe and therefore see, we need to have open minds leading to open eyes and open, responsive hearts, so that we and others may have the experience and not miss the meaning.
CONNECTIONS
A sermon first preached on 3 May 2009
Our theme this month is “Connections”.
I believe that one of the ways in which the Spirit of God communicates with us is in helping us to make connections between one part of our experience and another.
My colleague, Rev. Ann Varker, had been approached about taking a baptism at Whitchurch. She did this, but felt that it was difficult to encourage an ongoing sense of belonging for the young family to the church, where people were predominantly elderly. Then she was approached about another baptism. She made a connection between these events, and suggested to the young families and to the church the possibility of specially designed worship for young families at 4pm on a Sunday. This led to the birth of Stepping Stones, which Ann has led, and sometimes the people of the church or the young families themselves have led. It has been sustained over a few years now and is leading to other ventures at the church, including a Holiday Club and a Parents and Toddlers Group.
This whole development began as a result of making a connection.
How open are we to making creative connections?
Many breakthroughs in scientific discovery and in engineering projects proceed by someone connecting one insight alongside another one.
The most widely known story about the great mathematician Archimedes tells of how he invented a method for determining the volume of an object with an irregular shape. A new crown in the shape of a laurel wreath had been made for the King and Archimedes was asked to determine whether it was of solid gold, or whether silver had been added by a dishonest goldsmith. Archimedes had to solve the problem without damaging the crown. While taking a bath, he noticed that the level of the water in the tub rose as he got in, and realized that this effect could be used to determine the volume of the crown. The submerged crown would displace an amount of water equal to its own volume. By dividing the weight of the crown by the volume of water displaced, the density of the crown could be obtained. This density would be lower than that of gold if cheaper and less dense metals had been added. Archimedes then took to the streets naked, so excited by his discovery that he had forgotten to dress, crying "Eureka!" (meaning "I have found it!").
Archimedes made a connection between the problem he had been asked to solve and the simple act of getting into the bath.
He wasn’t so good at connecting the moment of discovery with the fact that he didn’t have any clothes on!
Listening to a sermon is itself a creative exercise. Probably no one listens in quite the same way as anyone else. Each sermon, and certainly this one, is an invitation for you to make your own connections with what you are hearing and with your own life.
How can we make connections between the reading we have heard from John’s Gospel and our own experience of life?
There are Jesus’ words about being the gate for the sheep.
What images does the picture of a gate suggest?
There are three images which come quickly to my mind- nowadays, as you come to a village, there are often gates to reinforce that you are entering a village and need to drive at an appropriate speed.
The gates act as markers. They draw our attention to something we could easily have missed and which it would have been dangerous to have ignored.
And might not this be one of the ways in which God interacts with our lives, in showing us what is important?
And can’t we act as markers too-reinforcing, reminding, drawing attention to what is really important?
The second image of a gate is one which reflects more closely the context of Jesus’ words- a closed gate protects and encloses. The farm animals are protected and prevented from wandering away.
Can we see God in these terms too?
There are potential dangers of which we may often be unaware. God’s presence surrounding us is a constant source of reassuring and sustaining strength.
And isn’t part of our role to protect-especially the young, the old, the vulnerable? Isn’t our pastoral care in the church and the wider community connected with what we might call “safeguarding”, the closed gate protecting and enclosing?
The third image that occurs to me is that of an open gate which gives access. “The sheep go in and out and find pasture”. Jesus as the gate provides access to God, to life, to truth, to meaning, to purpose.
Through him we “find”, we explore and discover that which sustains and nourishes our lives. “I have come that you might have life and have it in all its fullness, superabundantly and overflowing”.
And our role, too, may be to provide access for people to meet with God as well as with each other.
And as for the image of the Good Shepherd, as opposed to those leaders of Israel castigated by Ezekiel for failing in their duty as shepherds, the Good Shepherd is committed to the point of laying down his life for the sheep; the Good Shepherd is caring, in the sense of knowing and being known by the sheep in a depth of relationship, and the Good Shepherd is reconciling, bringing together sheep that belong to different folds.
The God we encounter in Jesus is all this to us-utterly committed to us, deeply caring of us and seeking to bring about reconciliation between us and those we have yet to meet.
And our role is to emulate that model. In our commitment and caring and reconciling, we can “lay down our lives” in living as well as in dying, giving ourselves, our time, our energy, our love.
How do these various images translate into your life experience?
It is for you to make that connection.
STAY CONNECTED
A sermon first preached on 10 May 2009
How many people do you know with whom you attempt to keep in touch?
And how do you stay connected to them?
By seeing them, writing to them, texting or emailing, phoning them, sending a Christmas card?
The more precious, vital and life-giving the relationship, the more you will want to keep in close contact.
The possibilities for doing so are made much greater through modern technology. Not only can you speak to people across the world –now you can see them as well.
Staying connected with a network of people we have met in our lives may be one of our main purposes for existing, giving life a quality of meaning for them and us.
Staying connected is one of the main emphases of that reading we have heard from John’s Gospel (15:1-8). “Abide in me as I abide in you” –stay connected-live your life in me and let me live my life in yours.
If someone lives their life in close relationship with God it is like an organic connection. The branch is connected to the trunk. Paul calls it “being in Christ”. When God is integral to our very being, then such an organic, spiritual connection exists.
Through such connection we can best relate to one another.
To use an analogy which will have its limitations, many of us keep in contact with each other through land line phone or personal computer at home using a service provider like BT or TalkTalk. Sever the landline and you lose contact with friends and family.
The analogy is that of Christ as the landline, through whom we are in connection with significant people in our lives. And could it be that the quality of such relationships will be deepened if they are established through Christ the landline?
Although John’s Gospel only speaks of the relationship of the branches to the vine rather than one branch to another, the implication would certainly be that such connection of branch with branch is through the main trunk, the vine.
“I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing”. “Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me”.
“Bearing fruit” can be understood in relationship terms. People’s whole lives, are hugely enhanced and enriched by meaningful and loving relationships.
The implication of this reading is that we bear the fruit of such relationships through being connected intimately with Christ and maintaining such connection.
How do we stay connected with Christ?
As well as the organic, integral connection, there are the classic “means of grace” (meaning ways of communicating with, being in relationship with God, in a communion of receiving and giving). These means of grace include some of the obvious ways of remaining plugged in to the power and energy of God-ways like prayer, worship, and spiritual sharing with other people.
What opportunities are we taking to stay connected in such ways and with what degree of frequency?
Is the connection ongoing or sporadic? Is it basic to each day’s life rhythm or an occasional add- on?
How do we stay connected with each other?
One of the most imaginatively fertile pictures of the Holy Spirit describe the Spirit as “the Go-Between God”.
The Spirit links us to God and to one another.
The Spirit is like someone at a party introducing one person to another and helping them find a point of commonality –“John comes from Scotland too”, “Peter enjoys playing golf, like you”, “Jean collects thimbles as well”, “Eddie likes the same group that you went to see”.
The Spirit establishes interconnections between individual people, between groups, between nations. “The Go-Between God” is bringing people together with one another and thus in some mystical way with God.
Paul speaks about the followers of Jesus being “entrusted with the ministry of reconciliation”. Central to our discipleship is bringing people into contact with God and with each other, and especially where people have been estranged from God and from each other.
What Paul calls the ministry of reconciliation and what is described in John’s Gospel as bearing fruit and the picture of the Spirit as the Go-Between God are to do with this whole emphasis upon staying connected.
What is all this saying to you-about your relationships with people-the actual ones you already have and the potential ones you may be yet to form?
What is all this saying to you about your relationship with the living God and how you stay connected?