A recommitment to Christian unity.?

Sixty years ago, in 1964, under the auspices of the British Council of Churches, a conference on faith and order was held in Nottingham and put out this statement:

“United in our urgent desire for one church renewed for mission, this Conference invites the member churches to covenant together to work and pray for the inauguration of union by a date agreed between them. We dare to hope that this date be not later then Easter Day 1980. We believe we should offer obedience to God in a commitment as decisive as this.”

Sixty years later, we meet as churches and fellow pilgrims in this city to celebrate while not union, a new commitment to work together in discipleship and in mission as one holy, catholic and apostolic Church, united in our commitment to Jesus and living out our calling to be churches who seek to serve our community. But why haven’t we sorted it? Why are we still not one? Let’s hear that light bulb joke:

How many church people does it take to change a light bulb?

Charismatics: Only one. Hand's already in the air.

Roman Catholics: None. They use candles.

Anglicans: Eight. One to call the electrician, and seven to say how much they liked the old one better.

Lutherans: None. Lutherans don't believe in change.

Methodists: 10-  One to change the bulb. Nine to attack the minister, because someone's grandmother gave that bulb to the church!!

 

I want to encourage us tonight by using four words, tapestry, sheep, coin, hands… stick with me!

First, consider a tapestry.  Beginning with one thread, one colour, one row followed successively by more threads of different colours and locations.

With every additional thread the pattern becomes more full, more vibrant, more depicting of what the grand weaver desired. The more threads added, the more beautiful it becomes until it is pronounced finished. From above it is the masterpiece of the creator, yet from the back it is quite another story.

Have you ever looked at the backside of a seemingly flawless tapestry? It is an absolute quagmire of loose threads, rogue knots and indistinguishable patterns resembling nothing of the other side.  Scripture refers to the Church as living stones, the human body, a royal priesthood, and the bride of Christ, but I think the tapestry is a particularly telling demonstration of the process of the people of God.

We are to be one including people of such diverse backgrounds and qualities, and Jesus is weaving us into a fantastic one-of-a-kind work that is beautiful.

“But wait!” you may say, “from where I’m standing the Church looks like a messed up train-wreck of individuals.” That’s what makes this metaphor so fitting. Most of us are looking at the tapestry from the backside, and the truth is, it is not all that beautiful. Threads, are all over the place, doing their own things, abruptly cut…and knots galore. But the key is that God is not finished yet, and more importantly, God looks at the tapestry from the other side.

We are to be a messy church together. We might not agree on everything but we agree on one thing - to proclaim Jesus as Lord and Saviour and to share him in worship and witness. Christian unity is a lot of threads coming together. We won’t always agree, we will worship differently, we may have different priorities, what some of us do others may feel uncomfortable with, but tonight there is a new commitment to work at it, respecting each other and learning from each other. So we thank God we are part of his tapestry, offering what we can and respecting each other.

Secondly consider sheep and a coin. What is it all of us are called to do? To seek and save the lost. You’d expect after inviting a Methodist preacher to preach he might mention Wesley - and I’m going to quote him twice! Here’s the first quote. He said “you have nothing to do but to save souls, so spend and be spent.”

The three parables that make up chapter fifteen of Luke’s Gospel all focus on the central theme of the lost getting found, and the joy that is shared in the finding. Many scholars believe they were told as a single unit from the beginning of the Christian era, passed along through the oral tradition that Luke used to compile his gospel account. Tonight’s gospel reading focuses on the first two of these parables. In order for the lost to be found, it had to belong to someone first. The lost sheep was not a wild sheep that the shepherd came upon and added to his flock.

That sheep had belonged to the shepherd from the beginning, and had strayed away. The coin that the woman lost had been part of her life savings. It belonged to her. When she found it, she rejoiced with her neighbours that something of her very own had been restored to her. When Jesus told these stories, he was describing things that had once been where they belonged, but had somehow gone missing.

Jesus is saying that sinners and tax collectors, the misfits of society, all belong to God, just as much as anyone, and God is eager to restore all of us to himself. Once we accept that we belong to God and choose to serve him, we can’t slam the door in other people’s faces. It’s our job to hold the door open for everyone, even those we might consider outcasts. Especially those we might consider to be outcasts. We are to rejoice with God whenever one of these outcasts ‘gets found’ because all are precious to God. And we are also to join with God in the work of finding lost ones, and pointing them toward Christ.

The parables were given to religious insiders – Pharisees and scribes. Whether or not we want to admit it, we fall into that category, too. We are the religious insiders in our society.

And if we read these parables closely, we may realise that the ones who need to repent are the ones hearing the story. A coin or a sheep cannot repent. Perhaps Jesus is asking us to repent, as members of the “already found” group of insiders. Perhaps Jesus is asking us to repent of our smugness, our complacency, our failure to include sinners and tax collectors as part of “us.” We commit ourselves tonight in many diverse ways to commend the Saviour, be it through a cathedral being open, projects like Renew Ripon at Holy Trinity, Methodist coffee mornings, conversation with a Salvation Army officer in the market square, free church worship, shared witness at festivals through the year. Why are we here? To share Jesus. Together. In different ways but together. And all are welcome. Woe betide our churches become insular little clubs where we vet those who want to engage with us. Or we avoid encounter with some who aren’t easy to talk to or help. The shepherd and the woman don’t rest until the lost sheep and the lost coin are found.

The church as a tapestry, the church as a seeker and offerer of salvation, and finally the church as friends. This is where hands come in. John Wesley described religious liberty as the “liberty to choose one’s own religion, to worship God according to one’s own conscience.” He insisted that every person living had a right to do this. Wesley’s essay, The Character of a Methodist, says this “from real Christians of whatsoever denomination they be, we earnestly desire not to be distinguished at all.  Dost thou love and serve God? It is enough. I give the right hand of fellowship.” In his sermon on the Catholic spirit he wrote “if your heart is right with my heart, give me your hand.”

Tonight we recommit ourselves to friendship and a journey together. We recommit ourselves to seeking the lost. We recommit ourselves to learn from each other, to celebrate each other’s unique part in the team, to not be strangers but friends supporting each other. We all have our strengths and we need to offer what we can. Let’s not dis those we don’t get how they do things, let’s be glad we are different and reach out our hands to each other.

And let’s not spend too much time focussing on what divides us but what binds us together.

Tapestry, sheep, coins, hands.

“Nothing offends God more than for the church to be in a disunited state, because it bears to the world a very bad testimony and example."  Tonight, we recommit ourselves to work together. Then tomorrow we face outwards to our city. When we do the work of Christ there will be rejoicing as we find people and offer them his grace and freedom. God has given us this chance to sort ourselves out, to be one United church with all our different bits.

Through us he will build his Kingdom, and his name will be glorified. Be encouraged tonight in our unity and our diversity, this recommitment, this internal reboot, then go and be his church. Amen.

Signs of the end?

Next Saturday I’m going back to the city I went to school in, St Albans in Hertfordshire for a reunion of some of my year group who were at school from 1978 to 1985. I’ve not seen most of them for nearly 40 years. We are having a tour of the school and we are meeting some of our former teachers but I hope there isn’t a tour of the swimming pool. I hated swimming. The PE teacher used to hold a pole over my head and he’d shout when I started to struggle in the depths – hold on if you’re in trouble. Just hold on.

This Sunday is the second to last Sunday of our liturgical year. As we approach the end of the Church year, our Gospel invites us to consider Jesus’ predictions and teaching about the end of the world. And how we might hold on in trouble.

I went into the craft and chat Saturday workshop when I arrived at Allhallowgate yesterday afternoon. I was told as there was spare fabric to join in making a Christmas pudding. I told them I’d make one if they’d write me a sermon on the apocalypse! I was turned down.

There are people who are just holding on at the moment. The world feels too much. That’s why we are switching on Christmas lights so early. We need light. They were switched on last night, 16 November in Ripon. A truck was blasting out Christmas music so much so for several hours I had One more sleep by Leona Lewis going round and round my head. Santa was there and reindeer. On November 16!

We hold on by not thinking about the hard stuff, the swimming pool, the wars, the politics but you know one of the craft group said you’d better throw Thump into it…

I think I’ve told you that I’ve traced through social media some cousins in different parts of the United States. One says in a message “it’s scary and he isn’t even in the White House yet.” Are there signs of the end? Throw in too destruction of the planet, a lack of respect for the different and isolationism, who knows? People have worked out when the world will end and have been wrong. I remember once preaching in a very conservative evangelical Anglican Church the day after an expected rapture. I began my sermon by joking “ well we are all still here then” and none of them laughed!

Let’s be very brave and look at our Bible passages because they are both about just hold on when you are in trouble or it’s all too much.

The book of Daniel is familiar to many for the stories of the faithful being thrown into the furnace, and of surviving the lion's den. We were told those stories as children.

The story of Daniel is set just after Babylon's first attack on Jerusalem. The Babylonians had taken the city, plundered the Temple, and were taking swathes of their population into exile. Amongst the prisoners were Daniela and his three friends, whose Babylonian names were Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. The book of Daniel can be split into two parts. The first part (chapters 1, 3, 6) is their story and how they kept hope alive while living in the land of their conquerors. The other chapters (2, 4, 5, 7) include visions and stories that instruct the reader in not rebelling against God, encouraging patience while waiting for God's rule to return. In chapter 11, the author writes about a vision of the future where kings will rise and fall, including the final ‘king of the north', who will invade Jerusalem and desecrate the Temple. But even he will finally fail and be defeated.

There are many debates about the identity of this king, with some arguing it is the Syrian King Antiochus who lived in the mid second century BC. Others think it is a description of the Roman Empire. No single historical figure or empire fits the description entirely.

In the reading today, there is a vision of the end times to come, the final resolution of God's world.

The fate of the righteous and the wicked is decided. St Michael the Archangel comes as a sign of divine intervention in the natural order, but there is a strong hint of predestination in this text with only some being saved, a theme that is attractive to the author.

In verses 2-3, the text suggests resurrection of the dead, the only time in the Hebrew bible where this is explicitly affirmed, though belief in it was more widespread than the texts might suggest. The dead here are revived so that justice might be done – both on those who sinned in life, and those who suffered even though they did no wrong.

The apocalyptic imagery is picked up by Jesus and is written about in parts of Mark's gospel and in Revelation, where John applied them to the Roman Emperor.

Hold on.

Then Mark 13.

Before we consider Jesus’ words, it is important to note the political backdrop against which many think Mark’s Gospel was written. Most scholars concur that Mark wrote his Gospel for Christians living in or near Rome about 30 to 40 years after the death of Jesus. This was a time of political turmoil in Rome. Some Christians experienced persecution by the Romans during the reign of the emperor Nero (about 64 A.D.). Jewish revolutionaries rebelled against the Romans, which led the Romans to destroy the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 A.D. In this time of political turmoil and persecution, many in Mark’s community might have wondered if the end times predicted by Jesus were in fact quite near.

The reading from Mark chapter 13 is part of the Bible which we call apocalyptic. About the end. Jehovah’s Witnesses will get you about the end. Christianity has beliefs about the end but we rarely share them. Christian faith believes there will be an end – the end of the present age, the return of Christ and a new age inaugurated.  We believe that those who trust in Christ receive now. here, a foretaste of the new life in which they will share in Christ's triumph over death and rise, transformed like him, to perfect life in the presence of God. And that that perfect life will come. The end of this story and the beginning of a new one. Jesus stands with his disciples outside the awesome Temple which the disciples marvel and Jesus says you know, one day this will be gone, there will be destruction…

 

A first look at his words isn’t very comforting. Nation will rise against nation, kingdom against kingdom, there will be earthquakes in various places,  and famines but then he says something else. 

 

The new age is coming says Jesus, but it might be hard for a bit. Believe, stay firm, hold on, be the church. You will be rewarded in the end.   Only light drives out dark. Only love drives out dark. In that we trust even when we have no answers even when we do not know what to do – for God is God.

The Temple was the focal point for worship for Israel. The First Temple, built by King Solomon, was destroyed by the Babylonians. Some seventy years later, Jews returning from the Babylonian exile rebuilt the Second Temple and 500 years later King Herod remodelled some of it, beginning around 19 BC and finishing in 63 AD.

This means that the work was still continuing in Jesus’ day but even partly done, it dominated the skyline as well as the religious practices of the Jews. To stand outside and look up would have been awe-inspiring.

Some of the structures were vast. One of the foundation-stones, measured in recent times, proved to be nearly twenty-four feet in length, by four feet in depth.

The disciples would not just have seen the physical structure but would have absorbed the cultural enormity of what the Temple meant for their people; what it said of their history; what is called from them in worship. This was the sacrificial centre of their faith. This was where they were expected to make pilgrimage. This was where, in the Holy of Holies, they were taught that God was most present.

Is it any wonder they gasped and said out loud: ‘Look, Teacher! What massive stones! What magnificent buildings!’

What they didn’t know, of course, was that the Temple was destined for destruction. In the year 70 the Romans laid siege to the city and after five months destroyed both Jerusalem and the Second Temple, as it was known. 

 

Yet existence as God’s people did not depend on the Temple; as they had learned in a previous era, so long as they gathered to pray and hear the stories of God’s mighty saving acts recounted in the Torah, so long as they allowed themselves to hear and heed the words of their prophets, so long as they continued to love God and neighbour and even their captors, they could continue even in dire circumstances to serve as agents of and witnesses to God’s faithful, redemptive work in the world. 

 

Just hold on…

Let me end like this. When I’ve no words, I always go to Nadia Bolz-Weber, an amazingly honest pastor in the States. She shared this prayer this week.

 

Dear God,

There’s so much to fear right now that I’m sort of losing track of what to worry about most. So I’m gonna need some help focusing. Show me what is MINE to do. Then grant me the strength to do it, and the humility to rest knowing it is enough.

Help me remember that even if there is more to worry about in life right now, it does not mean that there is less to love in life right now.   So protect every inch of our joy, Lord. And if you could help me stop reading shit on the internet, that might really help too. Amen.

And note how the Gospel ends today:

We read with hope that the "wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars for ever and ever."

The texts suggest a kind of ‘power behind the madness' that will break through for those who maintain hope. Reading this we might find comfort in the story of redemption that underlies all space and time: God's promise and power over, through and despite human actions. There is a pattern here that comforts. Whether it is apocalyptic beasts, humans glorifying in their own power, or anyone who doesn't acknowledge God, God will one way or another bring about God's kingdom. So, the message is simple – keep the faith.

 Things may well be difficult and confusing. Things may be changing, there are rumours and birth pangs… but you know what -  - maybe until the end we are simply to hold on and God will be faithful…      

From death to life - a reflection for All Saints and All Souls

One of my friends was in a pub on Thursday evening for a meal with her family. Of course, Thursday was Halloween. As soon as the last guests had finished eating, the landlord started to take all the Halloween decorations down and then he started to put Christmas decorations up. Please let’s let Christmas come when it should – about December 24 if I had my way!

Before Advent begins on December 1, we have some special Sundays in November. The lectionary in a few weeks will remind us of the end of the Christian story, the reign of Christ as King in glory. Next Sunday we will gather to remember the fallen of two world wars and conflicts since, and here today we are marking two Christian festivals Methodist people often don’t do – All Saints and All Souls. I know some people have stayed away from this service because it’s too hard for them but I want this to be a service of hope – we will talk of death and loss but we won’t stay there because our faith doesn’t stay there. We are an Easter people and alleluia is our song, but after four and a bit years of having me as a preacher, you know it is my conviction we have to do Good Friday and pain before Easter, we have to die in order to live.

First then, we need to remember. Canon Michael in the cathedral notice sheet for today shared a song from Iona he turns to at this time. The words encourage us to remember those who helped us come to faith, by singing songs and telling stories, by inviting us when we felt distant, by praying for us without being asked. We need time, intentional time, to pause and thank God for those who have shown us Jesus, those who have helped us come to faith, those who have sung songs and told stories, those who have invited us into Jesus presence when we’ve felt distant and those who have prayed for us without being asked. All of you come here with those people without who you wouldn’t be the people you are today: the ones who have shown you Jesus in word and in action. Parents, grandparents, husbands, wives, children, friends, Sunday school teachers, maybe even the odd minister. In a sad and horrible dark world, these people brought you light.

I am doing a school assembly in the morning in Grewelthorpe. We will talk about three famous saints – St Alban, the first Christian martyr in this country, St Wilfrid, our local saint, Mother Theresa who helped the poor in Calcutta made a saint fairly recently and then I will ask a child to look in a mirror because we all have the potential to be saints. I was at the welcome service for the new Anglican bishop of Whitby the other week.

At the end of the service, he thanked the saints “here in Northallerton.” He meant those who had made the coffee and baked cakes and made us welcome. The letters in the New Testament begin “to the saints” – we are to be distinctive, and those we remember, we remember good qualities and faith that stay with us forever.

I find taking funerals a huge privilege because you hear stories of people who did things you never thought they would do because you only met them in later life. We heard of Moses last days earlier. I feel a bit sorry for Moses as after years of journeying and people moaning and being horrible to him and giving up on God, he never saw the Promised Land but his life’s work was well done and his story is still told today. We remember those who have gone before us with gratitude.

Then we need to talk of death this morning. However hard that is! Here’s my second piece of writing by the late American writer, Mary Oliver. “To live in this world, you must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal, to hold it against your bones that your whole life depends on it, and when the time comes to let it go, let it go.” But that’s hard isn’t it. We don’t want to think about death and partings. That poem Death is nothing at all is often read at funerals, it ends in triumph but death isn’t nothing at all! But it is but a journey to something better and we will get to that. But most people don’t want to talk about it. Thomas in the Gospel didn’t get it. “We don’t know where you are going! How can we know the way?” Despite Jesus’ promises, the disciples couldn’t face death and a cross and it was all about a defeat and an end.

I meet regularly with Rob, the Methodist army chaplain at Dishforth. He told me this week over coffee that part of his role is to talk about death with the soldiers. He talks with them on operations, a bunker in Iraq or in Afghanistan. Imagine that.

Jesus goes to prepare a place for us. That’s amazing good news! And for some there is a peace that calms those awaiting the end of earthly pilgrimage. Last Sunday, the radio DJ Johnnie Walker presented his last programme after 58 years. He’s got idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis which makes breathing very difficult. I found a tear jerker of a programme on BBC Sounds where he talks about the future with his wife Tiggy. He only has a couple of months to live and in the programme they talk about his funeral and then how his spirit will be living on and being there for her. The programme is called Walker and Walker and I really recommend you find an hour to listen to it – with plenty of tissues!

Jesus does not save us from the reality and the sorrow of death. Even Jesus, confronted by the death of his dear friend Lazarus and the immense grief of his sisters, broke down and wept.

Today, as we remember those we have loved and lost and all the saints, we are allowed to weep and to be sad.

 This kind of grief is a sign that we are human and that human connections matter. They mattered greatly to Jesus of Nazareth.

But we are also urged toward hope and not despair. “Did I not tell you,” Jesus reminds the grieving Martha in the Lazarus story, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” Death is real but it is not the end.

Finally here’s my third piece of writing. The theologian and author Jan Richardson writes this:

God of the generations, when we set our hands to labour, thinking we work alone, remind us that we carry on our lips the words of prophets, in our veins the blood of martyrs, in our eyes the mystics’ visions, in our hands the strength of thousands.

From all we read in the New Testament, the grave is not the absolute finale of the great act of life. “The trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be raised incorruptible.” But we are not given any details as to what happens after death. Lazarus is nowhere quoted, even though his sisters and friends must have asked him what it was that he saw. But we believe heaven, eternity is a party of eternal delight with God, free from pain and suffering and yes our loved ones, your loved ones, look down on you cheering you on, a great crowd of witnesses. Peace I leave with you says Jesus.

So today, we give thanks, we remember the journey from death to life and we anticipate the joy of heaven. And as we remember stories and our faith and a faithful God, we work to make our world better like our forebears and Jesus did.

Adrian Roberts is one of the lay readers in the Fountains Benefice and he’s written a weighty tome on the hope for an afterlife. He quotes C S Lewis:

 “There have been times when I think we do not desire heaven, but more often I find myself wondering whether, in our heart of hearts, we have ever desired anything else.”

And Adrian reflects helpfully: “All our yearnings for something more than life can offer may be an indication that it was never intended that our existence and significance should be confined to this life alone. It may well be we were always meant to end up in a realm of ever increasing joys and wonders, a realm of the new where we and all those we have loved will be transformed in ways we can barely imagine but which will also be a realm in which we realise that we have finally come home to that distant shore.”

I know this isn’t the easiest service to come to, and I know this hasn’t been the easiest sermon to write but I hope remembering and revisiting the heart of what faith is about, you can take away some hope today. For our loved ones are safe and the triumph of heaven is mighty and onr day we will be there too. Until then, may we keep praising God who in a Jesus has said death cannot hurt us and eternity is our gift.

Following God’s saints in the ways of holiness and truth, we keep going in the peace of Christ.

 Thanks be to God.

Treasure in heaven?

I wonder what you were doing in the early hours of Friday morning about twenty to one? We were out aurora searching. It turned out late Thursday night and early Friday morning we didn’t need to book expensive cruises round Norway to see it, we just needed to drive to Dallowgill and park by the chapel. There was an amazing mixture of green and red and apart from the wind absolute peace and silence. The world at twenty to one on Friday morning was still and calm and problemless. Rather like Robert Browning’s Pippa Passes: The year's at the spring and day's at the morn;Morning's at seven; The hill-side's dew-pearled; The lark's on the wing;The snail's on the thorn: God's in his heaven— All's right with the world!

But then we come home and find all’s not right with the world.

I began writing this sermon a few hours before our aurora hunt.  

I was sitting waiting for a talk in the Crown Hotel in Harrogate which is hosting the annual Harrogate Literature Festival at the moment. I relax by watching and reading about politics and social history. So I was waiting to listen to one of our former Prime Ministers.

I wonder if you got a chance to meet a Prime Minister living or dead who it would be? Churchill? Liz Truss?!?! My Dad worshipped Harold Wilson. I’m reading a book about Wilson at the moment. Anyway I was waiting for Theresa May. She was talking about leadership and the abuse of power and a plea for all of us to return to serving and being responsible for each other.

I often watch the news on catch up quite late at night and the other night with a mixture of Israel and Gaza and the Lebanon and Syria and Yemen and Iran and hurricanes in the United States it was almost too much to watch. We need to pray for all those in leadership who have a responsibility to lead with integrity and compassion and not for their own end. Sadly this doesn’t happen in some places and it leads to where much of the world finds itself today. We cry peace peace but there is no peace. We are tired of war and negativity and we need a different narrative. The Old Testament passage for this Sunday is part of Amos prophecy to a people going off the rails. He longs for justice in the gate, he longs for good spiritual leadership out of the shrine at Bethel, he warns of an abyss. They hate the one who rebukes in the gate: Amos told us the cause of coming judgment – the terrible way that the people of Israel treated one another, especially how the strong took advantage of the weak. The weak had no voice in the gate and were robbed by oppressive taxes. The rich took advantage with bribes so they could drive the poor from justice.

 

The gate was the law court in ancient cities. Israel’s courts were so corrupt that they silenced the poor and righteous. The effect of this culture of injustice was that the prudent keep silent at that time, for it is an evil time – godly and righteous people did not speak out either fearing retribution or knowing it would do no good.

“Judicial decisions for each community were taken at the gate of the city, where the heads of families and other elders assembled to hear witnesses, arbitrate disputes, decide controversies and generally dispense justice. The space on the inner side of the gate together with rooms or alcoves in the gate area itself were used as courtrooms.”

Though you have built houses of hewn stone, yet you shall not dwell in them: Amos tells us God’s curse for Israel’s wickedness. Though the wicked in Israel gained fancy houses and vineyards from their oppression of the poor and railroading of justice, the gains were only temporary. God would evict them from their dishonestly gained houses and vineyards. Seek good and not evil, that you may live; so the Lord God of hosts will be with you: Amos proclaimed God’s cure for Israel’s sin. They must begin to simply seek good and not evil. They must transform their corrupt courts and establish justice in the gate. Amos was talking to God’s people who were immersed in the law and the law included how you treat other people. Did you hear Tim Walz have a swipe at Donald Trump having some God bless America Bibles produced and outsourcing their production to China? “We just found out his Trump-branded Bibles—yeah, they’re printed in China,” Walz said at a Michigan rally. “This dude even outsourced God to China!”The Minnesota governor then feigned pity on Trump and offered to be “generous.” He said, “I don’t blame him. He didn’t notice the ‘made in China’ sticker, ’cause they put it inside, a place he’s never looked: in the Bible.”

Don’t you just love an American election? Maybe though we just want a peaceful aurora world every night. We cry to God. What shall we do? 

I was struck by the Message translation of part of Psalm 119 in our prayer time at Allhallowgate on Wednesday.

 I’m homesick—longing for your salvation;
    I’m waiting for your word of hope.
My eyes grow heavy watching for some sign of your promise;
    how long must I wait for your comfort?
There’s smoke in my eyes—they burn and water,
    but I keep a steady gaze on the instructions you post.
How long do I have to put up with all this?

People are searching for that aurora world. Let’s look at a rich young man. He says “what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”

I love this from the Church of Scotland worship material. “Imagine that one Sunday morning, three new people come to in to your church. If your church is anything like ours, then I imagine that there will excitement at seeing new people come. One of these three new arrivals is a wealthy young man with leadership experience, and a deep concern for eternal life. The second person is a lady with a bad reputation, whom people choose to avoid. The third person is called Zacchaeus. He works in finance, and the rumour is that he is crooked. You barely notice him coming in – he doesn't stand out in a crowd – and of course he immediately starts climbing; up to the balcony. Of these three people, which is the one that you would be most pleased to see in your church?

I imagine, being honest, that many of us would be pleased to see the keen, religious, wealthy young man. We may already be thinking about when to approach him to become an elder, and the healthy effect his tithing is going to have on the church finances. Yet when these three people met Jesus, it was the lady with the reputation who went away from her encounter with Jesus and became a successful evangelist in her own neighbourhood. It was Zacchaeus that left his encounter with Jesus as a changed man. However, in the whole New Testament, the wealthy young man is the only person described as feeling sad after meeting Jesus.”

As he describes the encounter Mark puts in a beautiful phrase (v21): ‘Jesus looked at him and loved him.’ No one else in this Gospel is described in such a powerful way. Jesus loved him: his heart went out to this young man. Why? Is it because he is moved by the urgency of the question? Is it because he knows the question can unlock a whole new future? Is it because he knows the demands of following will be too much? Jesus’ answer challenges the notion of ‘inheriting’ eternal life; perhaps because the questioner had inherited his fortune and status and could only see progress in those terms.

Jesus answer can be summed top in a series of verbs, of actions.

·       go

·       sell

·       give

·       come

·       follow

‘Jesus looked at him and loved him. ‘One thing you lack,’ he said. ‘Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.’  The issue is not so much about what the man possesses as what possesses him. He is a prisoner of his wealth and status and needs to see God’s plan for him in a different light.

Turning away is a rejection of God’s Kingdom and its promises: the rich, young, ruler had found the entry fee too demanding.

Traditionally wealth was seen as a sign of God’s blessing and, while the disciples had given up everything to follow Jesus, they were still shaken that their Rabbi would make such a shocking announcement: ‘Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God!’ or, as in some manuscripts, how hard for those who trust in riches. 

It seems to me that this encounter is not about Jesus condemning wealth in itself, but Jesus putting his finger on the block for this man’s discipleship.

Then what shall we do? What must I do? How do I play my part in making the world better? We cannot friends change the world apart from praying and protesting but we can make a difference where we are. So while praying for leaders I remember my own responsibility - in the words of the prayer, let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me.

 

Why is it our human psyche needs an uplifting? We get excited about seeing the aurora or a sunrise or a sunset or the sea? Why is it we need times of celebration and festival? I’m doing the Harvest service at Wath chapel near Pateley Bridge on Sunday night  and the place will be packed. Why is it we become so depressed about the world? Because we’ve forgotten we need a bigger vision and maybe God sends auroras and sunrises and sunsets and the sea and festivals to remind us of that, but also maybe Amos warning and the sad turning away of the young rich man are a message for us to look outwards and do what we can do in our part of the world to make it better. Theresa May on Thursday talked about taking off a mantle of selfishness and devoting ourselves unashamedly to duty and the service of others. Maybe that’s the key to it.

The prophets, like Amos, call us to a new way of being and living precisely because God knows, without any doubt, that this other way is possible for us, despite our histories of failure. When Amos says, “Seek good and not evil… establish justice in the gate,” the prophet is saying, “Yes, this option is actually available to you, and it always will be.”

Maybe then we’ll see not another aurora but treasure in heaven.