Love maybe all you need - its just how you understand it!

 St Mary's Ellenhall United Service 10th May 2015

John 15.9-17

The Gospel reading last week invited us to consider Jesus as the true vine, and we, as followers, as branches abiding in the vine and bearing fruit to the glory of God.

Today we keep with the same passage from John 15 and are considering one of the hallmark fruits of the community that would gather around Jesus…

‘Now I tell you to love each other as I have loved you.’

In the Greek language there are four basic words used for love.

Phileo – which is often referred to as brotherly love, a love between equals.  (Philadelphia USA)

Eros – intimate and something often equated with sexual love.

Storge – that most often refers to family, parents for children.

Agapa – this is a deep kind of love, a sacrificial love, a total self-giving love.

(Read C.S.Lewis ‘Four Loves.’)

In the English we have to make do with just the one and hope that the context expresses the meaning.I can say I love rice pudding, I love God and I love my wife.

Hopefully you will understand that I mean something different in each case.

Here is one way we can consider this hallmark fruit of the community of God’s people.

L = laughter

In the previous diocese I worked for I was based at Church House, the diocesan administrative centre. In November 2013 there began a major review that led to several amalgamations of departments and a good number of people losing their jobs.What had been a reasonable happy environment with lots of laughter became a very sad place indeed and a spirit of depressions fell over everything.

I am so pleased that there are some good Christian comedians out on the circuit – some who organised a ‘Clean Comedy Tour.’  They are able to show that you don’t need smut to be funny and get people laughing.

There are of course laughter clinics where the beneficial effects of laughter are known for the huge medical and mental benefits.

Of course there are times when it is inappropriate to laugh and we should never laugh at someone whilst we can laugh with them and share the joke. However that should never be at their expense making them feel stupid or belittled.

I remember hearing of two Jewish friends who found themselves in one of the Nazi death camps. As they entered they agreed with each that they would find at least one thing at the end of each day about which they could laugh or at least smile. They both survived because that gave them hope.

When people look at us as the people of God, do they see laughter and joy among God’s people?

O = obedience

This is one of those things that we don’t like that much in our live and let live liberal culture. Who am I to tell anybody how they should live their life. While we do not want to go down the route of ‘thou must not’ and ‘thou shalt not’ there are things that are manifestly bad for people and we have a Christian duty, especially to those of our own Faith Community, to speak out the truth in love.

There are of course many instances in the Scriptures and in the teachings of Jesus that will help steer us on a right path. Remember 6 foot planks and specks in somebody else’s eye!

I do remember a story from just a few years back of a mother who was threatened with child neglect and having her child taken away because he had become obese. In her defense she said, but he likes crisp and burgers and chips and won’t eat anything else. In her mind she was being a loving and caring mother giving to her child what he craved – yet she was quite literally killing him with this misguided idea of what love is.

So, sometimes love has to be tough and love has to say no, that is not the way to behave or act.

‘If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love.’

This is my command: Love one another.

Perfect – but let us not fool ourselves in thinking that means we shouldn't call each other to account and to live a life of holiness and obedience.

V = valued

An anthropologist proposed a game to some children in an African tribe. He put a basket full of fruits near a tree and told the children that whoever got there first wins the sweet fruits.When he told them to run, they all took each other’s hands and ran together, then all sat together enjoying their treats.When he asked them, why they had run like that as one could have had all the fruits for themselves, they said:

''UBUNTU, how can one of us be happy if all the other ones are sad?''

'UBUNTU' in the Xhosa culture means: "I am, because we are"

So, tell me this, who do you think is the most important person in the Church. Perhaps you might think it is the Priest as he/she celebrates the Eucharist or leads the Service. They may look like they are playing an important role, and in some ways they are. But so are those who have washed and ironed the linen. So are those who have spent time creating floral displays. So are those who have who have cleaned the place and so have those, if you have one, who have cleaned the toilet. 

‘You are a unique and irreplaceable actor in the drama of human history, and Jesus Christ has need of you to make known his salvific work in this particular place and at this particular moment in history.’  Michael Quoist ‘The Christian Response’

Toilet cleaners, priest and politicians are all of equal value in the Kingdom of God. So don't look down on anyone or put yourself down either, each one of us is a precious daughter or son of God.  We need to recognize and see the Christ in each other.

E = encouragement

‘Therefore if there is any encouragement in Christ, if there is any consolation of love, if there is any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and compassion, make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose.…

This is written in Philippians 2, 1-2 which gives a lead into what is called the Hymn of the Kenosis, that is self-emptying. A most wonderful early Christian hymn that speaks of Christ leaving the glory of heaven to come and dwell among so that he might show how we should live as authentic humans beings. Then going on to die on the cross to make it possible for us to have a restored relation with God, with ourselves and with each other and indeed with the whole of creation.

In the New Testament, principally in Acts we meet a character called Barnabas, son of encouragement. He is one of my favourite characters and when I was asked how I would like to be remembered I said, ‘he was as a Barnabas among us.’

As a runner I can tell you how important it is to have that cheering crowd as you pump your tired legs in the last leg of a race and as you head towards the finishing line.

‘Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.…’

Hebrews 12.1-2

So in closing let me ask you this.

What do people see when they look at us the people of God?

Do they see a community of faith, love and hope? Do they see a community of faith that is living for each other and for the larger community in which they are set? As engage with people in the shops and in the streets, in the market place and along the lanes and at schools do they look at us and see something attractive – and I am not talking physical attraction here. But a deep inner beauty because we are those who spend time with God, with Scripture, spend time in prayer and spend time with each other, encouraging each other. We spend time calling each to account. We spend time and make sure we value each and every one from the very youngest to the very oldest. 

We are one body because we share in one bread…

Numerous surveys are now coming out that are showing that not everyone wants an all sing, all dancing worship experience with bright lights and loud music. That may suit some, however what the surveys are findings is that people are looking for authenticity. They want to know if Christianity works and does it make a difference day by day.

We need to learn to share our faith in words and in actions and that begins with the household of faith, the church, and then spills out into the streets as we will soon be celebrating at Pentecost.

1 John 3.18

‘Dear children, let's not merely say that we love each other; let us show the truth by our actions.’

Of Vines Vineyards and Abiding!

United Broughton/Croxton/Chapel

3rd May at 11 am at St Paul's, Croxton.

John 15.1-8

In thirteen days’ time I will be celebrating a birthday, when thanks to some catchy lyrics from Paul McCartney I will be able to ask my wife if she still cares for me and if she will still look after me!

There are a few odd things about getting older that kind of creep up on you and take you by surprise.

Just the other day as I was driving somewhere I was listening to Radio Stoke. (Radio One is way too loud!)  That might be bad enough, but then Gardeners Question Time came on – and I went on listening - and listening with interest.

(With huge respect for all lovers of gardening of more tender years)

However I remain largely ignorant about all matters horticultural.

Having been in Ministry for nearly thirty years we have traveled around a fair bit and have had to deal with some pretty neglected gardens during that time. I remember digging down into the back garden in a council house we lived in during our Luton days.

As I dug down it became like a bizarre archaeological dig, I found a mattress and all sorts of other stuff. Eventually we found a path that must have been at least 2 feet down, buried under soil and other stuff.

The Vicarage Garden in Luxulyan in Cornwall however did beat us. It was huge and had become a veritable wilderness. I was always scared I would lose one of the children and have to send out a Search and Rescue Team.

Our current garden in the Manse at Stafford is basically okay, but just been neglected for about a year. So I am trying to re-establish the borders as one of the first task.

But I don’t really know whether what I am digging up and consigning to the tip is a good flower or plant or a pernicious weed. I can tell the basic stuff, I know what dandelions look like and nettles and brambles. I am also transplanting some stuff and pruning the Wisteria and Honeysuckle that was growing at the front of the house and taking over everything and blocking out light.

‘I am the vine and my father is the Gardner.’

(You were wondering when I would get around to the Gospel reading weren't you!)

Jesus himself may have been a gardener as well as a carpenter come builder. 1^st century Palestine was an Agrarian society.

However Jesus isn't merely using a horticultural metaphor, but saying something far more profound. When we read our Scriptures we need to learn to see links and patterns, we need to take cognizance of echoes and themes that we have come across before.

We have to learn to do that because we are not 1^st century Jews living in Palestine.

So what do we hear when Jesus speaks of the vine?

We should hear a rich and deep metaphor that was very much part of the warp and weft of how the Jewish people thought of themselves.

The picture of the Vine is a picture of Israel transplanted from Egypt and placed in the Promised Land.

Psalm 80.8-11 ‘You brought a vine out of Egypt; you drove out the nations and planted it. You cleared the ground for it, and it took root and filled the land. The mountains were covered with its shade, the mighty cedars with its branches. It sent out its boughs to the sea, its shoots as far as the river.'

In Isaiah chapter 5 we read a very well-known piece about a Song of the Vineyard. About how Yaweh had planted this vineyard, nurtured it and tended it and looked for good fruit and yet it yielded only bad fruit.

Then do you recall the story of that we find in all three Synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke – sometimes called the Parable of the Tenants.

The story tells of a man who planted a vineyard and a built a wine press and a watchtower. (Nothing to do with J.W.s)

He rented out the farm to tenants. At harvest time he sent servants to collect some of the fruit. But the tenants beat him and chased him away. Eventually the owner sent his son, thinking they will show respect to him. But instead they killed him and threw him out of the vineyard.

That story needs to be read in the light of Isaiah 5 and other related passages.

So you can see why this story about the vineyard in John 15 is not simply a 

good horticultural illustration.

This is a story that is as deep and as rich as the very best and most expensive of red wines – wines that have a long, long history.

‘I am’ – the well know motif of John’s Gospel. I am the true vine – here Jesus declares that in him is Israel personified, he is now Israel coming into the Promised Land.

And he brings with him a new people – those who will abide in him, those who will stay close to him.

Those who will accept the pruning and cutting away of long held and deep traditions so that the true vine as God intended can flourish.

Now I did have one bush in our current garden that I think was some kind of rose bush. However it had become so long and spindly it was hard to tell, and most of it was dead anyway. So, down went the lot, cut right back almost to the roots.

Those branches I cut off would soon die and find their way to the tip.

‘…apart from me you can nothing.’

It is a partnership – the whole enterprise of God is to bring about a new heaven and new earth, a redeemed and restored cosmos - as we read in Romans 8. 21-23…

‘…that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body.… ‘

Can I ask you this morning how big is your concept of God, of the Jesus story, of the Lord’s Prayer that is often on our lips but in reality far away from our hearts and even further away from our hands and feet in making it a reality. 

Of course, of course, there are some massive questions that we in our generation face, in the same way each generation has had to face.

Where is God in the appalling disaster in Nepal. Where is God protecting His people as Isis continues to rampage and brutally kill and murder with impunity men, woman and children?

Those and many others like them are hard questions to face.

I remember many years ago visiting Speakers Corner in London when I lived not far away. On one occasion someone took me to task about the Christian faith and successfully deconstructed so much of my belief and made it sound like so much bunkum.

I walked the couple of miles home in sombre mood. However as I walked I kept thinking, maybe, but Jesus is real. I know Jesus is real, I know that I have experienced his love for me.  I know the love, care and support shown to me by others of God’s family.

I was cut, pruned, taken right back to the roots, but remained in Him.

Gradually I grew back, and I grew back stronger and more fruitful.

None of us like to be pruned, but think of it this way.

My Father is the Gardener, a skilled Gardner, who is not like me with my honeysuckle, randomly hacking away at each and everything.

Pruning a vine is a skillful operation and the gardener needs to get in very close to the vine.

When things are most painful, when it seems the pruning is almost unbearable, it is then that your Heavenly Father is the closest. 

So, we may not have a ready answer to those who would quiz us about our faith in God when disaster strikes.

We may not have a ready answer, but we can know Jesus. We can abide in Him. Rev 3.20 ‘Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.’ 

We can take faith in the resurrection as sure evidence that Jesus as Israel personified has entered the Promised Land. We can become part of a new faithful people peculiar unto God who are being rooted and established.

Mixing metaphors and referring back to the passage from Romans, childbirth is painful, even for Princesses. However there is joy in new life, new hope and new promises.

So, let me ask you again, how big if your God?

And let me ask you how fruitful are you?

In the back garden of our home in Hove, Sussex we had a pear tree. How did I know it was a pear tree – because it produced pears?

However we tried to harvest the pears one year and it was complete waste of time. The tree hadn't been pruned and tended and looked after. The fruit produced were very small and bitter and fit only for insects to enjoy or the compost bin.

What fruit am I bearing and what fruit are you bearing?

A few weeks ago I was at a Church Army Gathering. This brings together 

Members of the Church Army Mission Community. Among those gathering are our retired Officers, many of whom have served in God’s vineyard for many, many years. And it shows, their bodies may have grown weary but their spirits remain strong and from eyes that may have become dull physically, the light of the Spirit shines brightly.

When someone tells me that they have been coming to church all their life I would expect to see some good fruit. We have a list of what some of this fruit looks like in Galatians 5:22-23

'But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.'

.

Try putting your name against that fruit and see how you measure up!

However remember we all are a work in progress!  God loves us just as we are, but loves us enough not to leave us that way.

I would expect that if people have been abiding in Jesus for decades then it would show.

My wife and I will have been married for 33 years this year. One of the things a number people have noticed is how much we are beginning to look alike. (Much as some say is the same for pets and their owners!)

Now we don’t know what Jesus looked like physically, and that’s not the point anyway. The point is that we abide in him and bear fruit.

This is how we will show we are disciples.

There is a world of difference between being a Church goer, a follower of Jesus and being a disciple.

The Greek word for disciple is mathetes, which means “learner,” the word indicated “thought accompanied by endeavour.”  This meant that a disciple was not merely a person who was learning something as a fact but was actively learning to adhere to the principles of whoever he was following.  In the ancient times, when a person chose to become a disciple of another person, the disciple would follow his teacher everywhere. 

He would live where he lived, he would sleep where he slept and he would eat where he ate. He would be with his teacher every moment so that he could learn everything about him. 

Augustine of Hippo wrote…

‘Jesus Christ will be Lord of all, or he will not be Lord at all.’

I am the Vine (said Jesus) – the true Israel, sent to do all that Israel was meant to do, to be a light to the Gentiles, to show to a watching world what it means to live a life as an authentic human being lined up with God’s will plan and purpose.

As disciples of Jesus we are called to work and labour in God’s vineyard, so that we may see a realized Lord’s Prayer, where His Kingdom comes and His will is done on earth as it is in heaven. That means right here and right now!

Let us pray – (Ignatius of Loyola)

Teach us, good Lord, 

to serve you as you deserve,

to give and not to count the cost,

to fight and not to heed the wounds,

to toil and not to seek for rest,

to labour and not to ask for any reward,

save that of knowing that we do your will. Amen.

OMG! or 'My Lord and My God' (Transcript of 2nd Sunday Easter Sermon)

Cheadle & Freehay 12^th April 2015 

2nd Sunday of Easter

Acts 4.32-35 1 John 1.1-2.2 John 20.19-31

‘Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.’

From the 1^st Letter of John…

‘That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched – this we   proclaim concerning the Word of Life. ‘

Jesus’ words to Thomas, struggling to accept that Jesus had been raised to life (and who can blame him!)

‘Because you have seen me, you have believed, blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.’

I take that to mean you and me and all those over the centuries who have put their faith in Jesus. The countless millions who have declared along with Thomas, ‘My Lord and My God.’ Or perhaps in modern parlance…OMG!

Those who have found the truth of Jesus’ words ‘I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.’ John 10.10

Jesus was an epiphany of what it means to be a true human being, walking in perfect obedience and love of God. Someone who had mastery over the natural order and could commend sickness, demons and death to depart.

He drew back the curtain in much the same way as Elijah prayed his servants eyes would be opened when surrounded by his enemies. (2 Kings 6.17)

I stood in the place of Thomas on the 1^st January 1975 when at the age of 24 I said, ‘my Lord and my God’ and became a Christian.

Once having made such a declaration the question then is; how shall I now live? One of the most important aspects of growing as a disciple of Jesus is to meet regularly with others disciples.

Proverbs 27.17 declares, ‘As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.’

This is what is happening to the infant Jesus Community as outlined in our reading from Acts.

Not too many people today would argue that this is a blue print for how a Christian Community should live. Although there have been some brave attempts over the years to do just that, the Anabaptist in particular. Of course to some degree Monastic Communities do operate in this way.

And it is from Monastic Communities that valuable lesson are being learned, or perhaps we ought to say, re-learned as to how we can be the People of God in this 21^st century.

There is a whole new movement being called New Monasticism which is influencing many churches. The argument being that we need to shift from being Church Congregations to become Faith Communities.

Faith Communities that are committed at the core and open at the edges. Faith Communities that are both evangelized and naturally evangelizing. Faith Communities that hold a Common Rule of Life and a Pattern of Prayer. (Which is made so much easier today with electronic communication.)

By far and away most people are brought to a Thomas like confession through a friend. What better place to draw them into the heart and love of God than a Faith Community of which you are an active member.

Just as Jesus pulled back the curtain and let us see a glimpse of what it means to live as an authentic human being, so the Church is meant to show how authentic human beings can live together and bring a blessing to the world.

‘The gate of heaven is everywhere - our role is to help open the door... to roll away the stone and unleash the energy and wonder of the risen Christ’.

Thomas Merton

The Church is the means by which God brings a blessing to the world; ‘the Church of God doesn't have a mission in the world, but the God of mission has a Church in the world.’

So what is God’s mission – nothing less than to bring about the redemption of the whole cosmos?

And we are invited to participate in this noble venture – you are invited and I am invited because as Michelle Quoist puts it…

‘You are a unique and irreplaceable actor in the drama of human history, and Jesus Christ has need of you to make known his salvific work in this particular place and at this particular moment in history.’

Without God we cannot, without us God will not.

Jesus’s death and resurrection wasn't a tragedy, or part of God’s plan when everything went horrible wrong. In a way that is beyond our comprehension, in the deep mystery of divine economy Jesus was always part of God’s plan.

"The Son of Man must suffer many terrible things," he (Jesus) said. "He will be rejected by the elders, the leading priests, and the teachers of religious law. He will be killed, but on the third day he will be raised from the dead."  Luke 9.22

‘Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.’

So, let me ask you this…

Are you able to declare as did Thomas, ‘My Lord and My God?’

Perhaps you are on the journey towards that belief and that is absolutely fine. 

Because if you thought making a decision about choosing a life partner or a house or a car or anything else you care to name was important – they all fade into insignificance when compared with making a decision to believe in Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God.

Embracing such a belief is a game changer like no other. Or it ought to be if we take it seriously enough.

There are plenty of accounts in the Gospels and in the Acts of the Apostles about people whose lives were turned around because they declared their belief in Jesus.  And that is still happening today across the world, maybe not so much in our own country, but certainly across Africa and China and many other places.

In some ways we have lost the dynamic, lost the passion, lost the drive. We have lost the expectation that people will come among us and in so doing will encounter the living God, an encounter that offers them life, and life in all its fullness.

Let me ask you this simple question as I draw to a close…

Where are you this morning in your relationship with God?

Augustine of Hippo wrote...

‘Jesus Christ will be Lord of all or he will not be Lord at all.’

How true is that in your personal life and how true is that in the life of this church?

As you ponder on that let me close with some beautiful word from His Holiness Pope Emeritus Benedict XV1

And only where God is seen does life truly begin.

Only when we meet the living God in Christ do we know what life is.

We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution.

Each of us is the result of a thought of God.

Each of us is willed,

Each of us is loved,

Each of us is necessary.

There is nothing more beautiful than to be surprised by the Gospel,

By the encounter with Christ.

There is nothing more beautiful than to know him and to speak to others of our friendship with Him.