Prison Fellowship Reflection 25/02/2024

Jane and I are in Cornwall for Lowenna’s 9^th birthday on Monday, 26^th February.  It has been raining pretty much nonstop since we arrived on Thursday. However, yesterday we did manage the walk into Mevagissey.  Being a small fishing port one of the obvious signs around the harbour are about life saving. There is no RNLI Lifeboat but plenty of information about how to contact them and the coastguard. Plus, there is a locker with life jackets readily available.

This morning, we joined with our friends at Holy Trinity, St Austell for morning worship, as we explored Romans 4 and the ‘free gift’ of God which through the ‘saving work of Jesus’ put us into ‘credit’ with God.  From the ‘Bank of God’ we can withdraw all that we need in our daily lives, peace, patience, love, forbearance, hope, etc. etc. 

All of this comes as a gift of God; Ephesians 2:8-9 ‘For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.’

GRACE = God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense

Many years ago (1978) I was a volunteer with a Church Army Beach Mission in Great Yarmouth. On the beach one day I saw a child in trouble and being pulled underneath the pier.  I am not the strongest of swimmers, but I was able to swim over, lift them up out of the water so they could catch their breath. We then managed to get the child back to the shore and safety. I was musing the other day and wonder if they recall that day.

Sometimes the phrase ‘being saved’ is used in a Christian context and features in numerous worship songs, as it did for us today.

But what do we mean when we declare we are saved?  I would like to expand that word and what we may mean by it.  Particularly if we have constricted it to a particular ‘transaction’ that means we consider ourselves ‘saved’ from post-mortem banishment from God’s presence and being welcomed into ‘heaven.’

Surely it means much more than that.

Doesn’t it mean we can be saved from saying and doing hurtful things?  Doesn’t it mean we have hope? Doesn’t it mean we are saved, should we choose, not to follow the path of destruction either our own or somebody else’s, and we might include in that the environment as well.

Doesn’t it mean we search the Scriptures, we worship God and seek to follow his will and his way for we know that is the best for us, for our family and friends and for the whole world, both ‘our’ world’ and the larger world.

Doesn’t it mean we can say to those in prison, Jesus can save you, but mean so much more than this means you will now go to heaven when you die.

Not on salvation as such but I am reminded of a story of a reformed alcoholic who was ‘saved.’

His former drinking friends were teasing him one day, ‘so now you have become a Christian do you believe in miracles?’ ‘Well,’ he replied, ‘if you come to my home, you will see how Jesus has turned beer into tables and beds and furniture, how Jesus has turned alcohol into food on the table for my family. I don’t know if you would call that a miracle, but it’s enough of a miracle for me!’

How many ‘miracles’ of ‘salvation’ do we experience every day?

We have been saved, we are being saved and we will be saved - ‘and this will continue until we all come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God’s Son that we will be mature in the Lord, measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ.’  Ephesians4.13

'Into the Wilderness' ~ transcript of sermon St Oswald's Rugby First Sunday in Lent 2024

                           

 

Luke 4:1-13

 ‘Wilderness’ – what image does that suggest for you?

Experientially I think of Bodmin moor which I have walked around a lot. Or, more dauntingly, neighbouring Dartmoor, far more isolated and vaster.

  

But perhaps the strongest image for me is the Arizona desert. To celebrate our 25^th wedding anniversary Jane and I had a trip around some parts of Route 66. One section was from Tombstone to Las Vegas - driving. I remember once we had found a road the satnav saying, drive for 398 miles. One long straight road through the heart of the desert. If you got out of the car, you were hit by a wall of heat and wind. It was exciting and scary. How people managed to survive trav travelling thought that desert, I have no idea.   

Wilderness in the ancient world of the Bible was just as scary, perhaps even more so. If they had to travel, they would try and get from one inhabited place to another inhabited place as quickly as possible and usually in groups for safety.

Remember what happened to the man going from Jerusalem to Jericho?

However, wilderness was and remains a place where many encounter not only danger and even attacks from evil forces, but also a place where God is encountered. This story of Jesus in the wilderness echoes the formational and testing period of Israel in the wilderness for forty years.

‘Remember how the LORD your God led you all the way in the wilderness these forty years, to humble and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands.’

 Deuteronomy 8.2

But in the larger Biblical narrative we first encounter wilderness in the creation narrative. And that’s important as we reflect on Jesus’ experience in the wilderness and temptations he is to undergo.

And here, as an aside, it worth reminding ourselves that this story is not video footage. Jesus did not have a mobile phone and set himself up on a TikTok. And we are told clearly Jesus was alone – so how did this story find its way into the Gospels? Perhaps the simple answer is the simple answer – Jesus recalled the story to his disciples. Remembering that this was a largely illiterate society with an oral tradition. Truths were told in stories. We could spend a lot of time arguing about whether Jesus’ was taken physically to the highest point of the temple – but I would suggest that would be fruitless exercise.

Therefore, we ask why is this story being told?

What are the truths being conveyed?

How does this story fit into the larger Biblical narrative.

One of the exciting things about reading the Bible, with its 66 books of a variety of styles written over thousands of years, is the connectivity.

Route 66 – the Bible is the highway to heaven – but quickly adding that is a two-way traffic flow!

  

Let’s go back to the creation story and meet Adam One.

We can see that this story tells us of God’s good plans for the creation.

That the Garden Temple Space in Eden was to be extended across all the earth – ‘as the waters cover the sea.’  Bringing light, order, flourishing and abundance for all and for everything.

However, Adam and Eve are cast out into the wilderness following their choosing their own path of self-determination. Sadly, catastrophically, they failed the test. The once fruitful earth will now only give of its fruit begrudgingly, along with briars and thistles.  

But God has not given up on his project, the creators creativity arising out of the community of love we come to know as the Trinity.

Note if you will – ‘let us make man in our image.’

A long, long story then ensues with twist and turns and failures and frustrations as God seeks to call out first an individual, Abraham, and his family to be a true representative of Yahweh upon earth. From whom will arise a whole nation, Israel. Which then finds its focus on Jesus.

Jesus presents himself as Israel personified and Jesus present himself as Adam Two.

And Adam Two goes into the wilderness led by the Spirit as was Adam One following their disobedience.  

O loving wisdom of our God!

When all was sin and shame,

a second Adam to the fight

and to the rescue came.

 O wisest love! that flesh and blood,

which did in Adam fail,

should strive afresh against the foe,

should strive and should prevail;

(Praise to the holiest in the height - John Henry Newman) 

Here also as Jesus, Adam Two, confronts the wiles of the devil, that same voice, which if we listen carefully drips with poisonous honey, a voice that had so tempted Adam One.

A voice we may recognise as we face our trials and tribulations.

Notice that Jesus doesn’t argue or debate even when Scripture is quoted by the devil.

It has been said that the ‘thought is father to the deed.’

Once we begin to debate, to discuss and to entertain an idea, we are on a very dangerous path.

For example, remember Jesus’s words about not committing adultery. He says that to even look at someone with lust is committing adultery. To emphasise the seriousness of this Jesus talks about tearing out eyes and cutting of limbs, hyperbole indeed, but the point is still strong and clear.

‘We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.’  2 Cor 10.5

Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. James 4.7

Jesus has just undergone Baptism by John when the Holy Spirit came upon him. That’s our context for Jesus’ going out into the wilderness.

There had been those who claimed to be Messiah before and would be again after Jesus.

Most, if not all, followed a path of open rebellion against the occupying forces. They were crushed and their followers dispersed.

What path was Jesus to set out upon?

What was his understanding of Messiah?

What was his reading of the ancient text and stories?

Who would oppose him if he sought to teach about a way of self-sacrifice, a way of love, even for your enemies. A turning of the other cheek, a going the extra mile, an embracing of the poor, the filthy, the outcast. Embracing the leper and eating with sex workers and tax collectors.

Who would stand against him if he was to embrace a Samaritan woman and speak and offer new life to her and her community. Or if he was to heal a Centurion servant or a Syro-Phoenician’s daughter.

Jesus could probably see them lining up in opposition….

But Jesus knew that…

‘…our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.’   Ephesians 6.12.

Jesus knew that as he stepped out and began proclaiming that in him and through him the Kingdom of God was near, Jesus knew that he had to face, confront, and face down this dark force which had the world in its vice like grip.

This dark force in opposition to God, that used and abused human bodies, that brought everything back into a pre-creation state of chaos and confusion.

Jesus knew he would have to stand against this accuser, and Jesus knew that he couldn’t stand as one accused yet remain as Adam Two, without sin.

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. Hebrews 4.15

Brothers and sisters, we live in a wilderness.

We face trails and temptations.

We face and see the evil in our world, and we can look behind that evil and see the accuser, the corrupter of souls, the destroyer of life.

Let’s get very real, very personal, and very challenging.

I love studying the Scriptures. I love discovering new links and words and depths of their meaning, I really love it, it’s been one of the joys of retirement that I have discovered a whole new love for God’s word.

But – and it’s a really big and a very important but!

If our worship, our studying of Scripture. If our prayers and petitions, and our fasting, if they do not change the way we are in the world then it will be like putting lipstick on a pig.

 

Yes, we will be tempted to repeat that bit of salacious gossip. Yes, we will be tempted to give an unofficial hand signal to the person who has just cut us up on the road. Yes, we will be tempted to turn away from those most in need and do so with all sorts of reasonable and rational arguments – well I know I do. 

And yes, speaking mainly to the men here, we will be tempted by those images on our screens.

Let’s get real and recognise that we face temptations in the wilderness.

But let’s us take assurance that…

The temptations in your life are no different from what others experience. And God is faithful. He will not allow the temptation to be more than you can stand. When you are tempted, he will show you a way out so that you can endure. 1 Cor.10.13

Our calling is the same as that received by Adam One. But now because of the faithfulness of Adam Two we can stand filled with the Spirit of Adam Two.

I hope that’s not too confusing because I would like to invite us to step out into the world, into the wilderness to plant seeds of hope. To tear up brambles and thorns and thistles of hatred and dispute.

To be bringers of heaven to earth in our actions and bringers of earth to heaven in our prayers – up and down Route 66, the Word of God.

  

Asking this question – in my life, all of my life, I being Adam One or Adam Two?

My life, my life be on your altar,

 https://youtu.be/OSWMJhyEsy4?si=8ivY3AlmB5tK2jaU

And if you want to watch the sermon in context....

https://www.youtube.com/live/_dYDXsAVYTo?si=HR7u5qqq3IHqoxEH