15th January 2012 - Epiphany 2

Introduction

Many years ago, before the telephone existed, a telegraph company advertised a vacancy for someone who was familiar with Morse Code to fill a job as a telegraph operator. A number of people applied for the job and they were all called for interview. When they got to the telegraph office they were asked to wait. In the room where they sat they could hear the tap tap of the telegraph machine in the background. Suddenly one of the applicants stood up, crossed the room and walked into the supervisor’s office. The other applicants looked at one another and continued to wait. A few minutes later the supervisor came out of his office and told those who were still waiting, “You can all go home, the job’s been filled”. When they protested that this was not fair the supervisor explained, “Ever since you’ve been sitting here the telegraph key has been signalling, “Come straight into the office and the job is yours, but only one of you responded.” Each one of them had been called but only the one who had been listening was able to respond to the call.

Exposition

The theme that, for me,  emerges from our Bible Readings today is the theme of God calling people. The theme is apparent in the Gospel reading as Jesus calls Phillip and Nathanael but it’s the Old Testament reading that I particularly want to look at today. In this reading God called the young Samuel to deliver his message to Eli. For me this is a precious passage which I remember from my days as a child in Sunday School. That’s why I chose that Sunday School hymn about Samuel to follow it. I used to imagine myself as the young boy Samuel laying, half awake, beside the ‘sacred ark’ and hearing the voice of God calling to me. My fear is that through the passing years I may have become more like Eli, sleeping and unable to hear God when he calls because it’s too much effort to listen.

David Adam, the former vicar of Holy Island writes this about this passage:

The story of Samuel at Shiloh illustrates how the Church must often appear. Eli represents the Church; he is old and losing his vision. The light in the church has almost gone out. The sons of the ‘vicarage’, Hophni and Phineas, are not interested in following in their father’s footsteps. Into this situation is introduced a youngster and, as ever, he disturbs the church. Eli is trying to sleep. Samuel lies on his mattress listening to the sounds of the night. A voice calls. Samuel, who is about 12 years old, jumps up and wakes the old man. Eli and says, ‘you called.’ Tired, Eli says, ‘I did not call. Go back to bed my son.’ The Lord calls again, ‘Samuel!’ Once more Samuel jumps up and runs to Eli because he doesn’t know it was the Lord who was calling. Again Eli says, ‘I did not call. Go back to bed my, son.’ It is not long before the Lord calls a third time. For a third time Samuel disturbs Eli. This old priest, his vision fading, is able to guide the young man and send him back to his room, saying, ‘If he calls, you shall say, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.”’

The Church might be very old and find the young disturbing, but God speaks through new voices. At the same time the young will be lost without the guidance of the old.

Samuel heard the voice and said, ‘Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.’ In this way God was able to speak to Samuel and through Samuel.

How often do we fail to hear because we are unwilling to listen? We are often too busy or too prejudiced to hear the voice of God.

How can we make room in our lives to hear the still small voice of God?

Application

Just before Christmas both and David Keble and I received a letter from a couple who told us they had felt called by God to begin a new church here in Stansted – the Stansted Family Church. My first reaction was to feel threatened. How dare they claim that God had called them onto my patch to set up a church in opposition to mine. But as I reflected on the letter, and discussed it with David, I began to realise that in fact I was responding from fear, not faith. Both of us have been told many times that the people of our two churches are so very busy that they don’t have time to proclaim the Gospel or reach out to those in the community who are different from the people in our churches. Both of us are aware that our buildings consume so many resources that there is little left over to use for our mission. God is not mocked. If we will not do his work he will use others to do it. If Eli can longer hear his voice then he will speak to Samuel.

In the Bible reading it’s too late for Eli. Had we read on and heard the words God speaks to Samuel we’d discover they were terrifying words of condemnation:

The time has come for me to bring down on Eli's family everything I warned him of, every last word of it. I'm letting him know that the time's up. I'm bringing judgment on his family for good. He knew what was going on, that his sons were desecrating God's name and God's place, and he did nothing to stop them. This is my sentence on the family of Eli: The evil of Eli's family can never be wiped out by sacrifice or offering."

(1Sa 3:12-14)

For us, I think, there is still time. I don’t believe that God sent me to this place for no reason. God is bringing about two new initiatives which will have an effect on us all. Next Saturday the Bishop of Chelmsford has called together over a thousand people from across the diocese to listen for what God is calling us to. Cheryl, Peter and Matthew from this congregation (together with myself) have been called to be part of that. We want to be listening not sleeping. When we come back we will try to share with you the things we believe God has said.

And also David Keble and I will be running a course on Mission starting on the 29^th of February. It is our hope that every single person from both this Church and the Free Church will attend to ask “What is God calling us to do here?” The next step is then to get on and do it.

Let’s not be like Eli and fall asleep, too tied up with our busy lives to listen to God. Let’s let our words be those that Samuel says, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.”

8th January 2012 - The Epiphany of Christ

Today we celebrate the Epiphany of Christ. The ancient monastic prayers for this day contain the following words:

'Three Wonders mark this day we celebrate.
Today the star led the Magi to the manger;
today water was changed into wine at the marriage feast;
today Christ desired to be baptized by John in the river Jordan to bring us salvation, alleluia'.

The thing which links these three events is that they speak of God’s revelation of himself to the world in Jesus Christ. In the words of my favourite Epiphany hymn, today speaks to us of “God in man, made manifest”.

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I looked up the word “epiphany” in the dictionary and it gave a number of definitions of the word. The first was simply that it is a Christian festival. The second was “an appearance or manifestation, especially of a deity.” But it was the third which I thought especially helpful. It said an epiphany is, “a sudden, intuitive perception of, or insight into, the reality or essential meaning of something, usually initiated by some simple, homely, or commonplace occurrence or experience.”

The Epiphany is not simply a recollection of an event which happened two thousand years ago but instead is meant to be something which happens in us as contemplate the events which we remember on this day. As we think about the story the Wise Men, or the miracle of water changed into wine, or the time of Jesus baptism we are not simply to observe those as interesting events which happened long ago but by observing them come ourselves to “a sudden, intuitive perception of, or insight into, [their] reality or essential meaning” and because we have that “sudden, intuitive perception” be ourselves transformed so that we never see the world in the same way again.

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One of my favourite stories from the Old Testament concerns Elisha. The King of Aram is at war with the King of Israel but every time he attacks he finds that the army of Israel is ready for him. He accuses his officers of having a traitor among them but they tell him “It is Elisha, the prophet in Israel, who tells the king of Israel the words that you speak in your bedchamber.” So the King of Aram sends his army to capture Elisha. 

When Elisha’s servant gets up early next morning he sees “an army with horses and chariots ... all around the city” and rushes to Elisha to tell him. Elisha responds, “Do not be afraid, for there are more with us than there are with them.” Then he prays, “O LORD, please open his eyes that he may see.” And we are told, “So the LORD opened the eyes of the servant, and he saw; the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.” The story is in 2 Kings chapter six and if you don’t know what happens next I’d urge you to read it for yourself. It is a wonderful story. But right now I want you to understand what happened to the servant; “the LORD opened the eyes of the servant, and he saw...” He had an epiphany and the way he saw the world was changed for ever.

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“Lift up your eyes and look around you” said our Old Testament reading today, “Then you shall see and be radiant...” I believe that it is utterly central to being a Christian that you see the world differently from those around us. In our Gospel reading today we heard again the story of the Wise Men. Their wisdom lay in the fact that they could see through the external appearance to the reality which lay beneath it. When Herod heard of the baby nothing about him changed. Indeed his first thought is to dispose of the baby so that nothing will change. But the Wise Men had already transformed their lives by coming on a long journey and they were able to see through the outward appearance of an ordinary mother and child to see their God made manifest to them. So Herod continued on the path which would in the end literally consume him physically and mentally. The wise men are heard of no more but are remembered in Christian devotion and, like all who put their trust in Jesus, will rise to live for ever in the new creation.

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This is what I want you to understand today. That we are called to see a deeper dimension in the world. The dimension of meaning and significance; the "God dimension". There is a terrible danger that we compartmentalise our lives. Indeed often we are expected to do just that. Men and women are told that that you don’t bring family troubles into work, or that your religious convictions are a personal matter and should be kept for your own time. This kind of splitting up of our lives is in total conflict with the wholeness and integrity that is God’s intention for humanity. God’s plan is gather all things together in Christ and compartmentalising which excludes him from particular areas of life or society is nonsense.

God is present in every area of our life and your world if we will only open our eyes and see him. In the words of a hymn I remember from my childhood,

But if we desire him,
He is close at hand;
For our native country
Is our Holy Land.

This is sometimes easier to know in some places than in others. The Celtic Christians spoke of “thin places” where the heaven seemed close to earth. When I go to Holy Island and look out from its eastern cliffs I often sing out loud:

Fishermen talk with him
By the great North Sea,
As the first disciples
Did in Galilee.

Travelling helps us see such things. That is why the ancient discipline of pilgrimage is important. But the aim of going to special places is that we see all places as special. As TS Eliot wrote:

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

Or, to turn again to that hymn from my childhood:

Every peaceful village
In our land might be
Made by Jesu's presence
Like sweet Bethany.

Even our village, even this place. It’s an Epiphany.

1st January 2012 - The Feast of the Circumcision and Naming of Jesus

Today is the 8^th Day after Christmas and is Feast of the Naming and Circumcision of Jesus. Like all Jewish boys Jesus was initiated into God’s covenant with Abraham on the 8^th day after his birth as we read in Genesis Chapter 17 verse 10, “This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your offspring after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised.” It is at this point that his name, Jesus, is publicly proclaimed for the first time.

This is a very rich passage and there is a great deal that I could draw out from it but there are two themes that I think I must share something about. One of these is the idea of ‘Covenant’ in the Bible and the other is something about what the name ‘Jesus’ signifies.

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Firstly ‘Covenant’. A covenant is an agreement or contract between two parties, and the Bible gives us an amazing thought that the creator God enters into binding contracts with his people. If you will do this I will do that. In the Old Testament God’s contract is with the descendants of Abraham and the terms of that contract are that God will give to these people a particular area of land if they in return will worship him exclusively. As Ezekiel records, “they shall be my people, and I will be their God, says the Lord GOD.”

But the Old Testament also records that whilst God is faithful the descendants of Abraham prove faithless, abandoning their agreement with the one God and following other gods. As a consequence of this troubles come upon them. God sends prophets to call them back. For example Jeremiah proclaims, “If you return, O Israel, says the LORD, if you return to me, if you remove your abominations from my presence, and do not waver, and if you swear, 'As the LORD lives!' in truth, in justice, and in uprightness, then nations shall be blessed by him, and by him they shall boast.”

But it is not enough. Eventually the prophets acknowledge that human effort is not enough. Something more is needed. Jeremiah tells them,  

The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt--a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the LORD. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.      (Jer 31:31-33)

Isaiah tells us that God’s special servant will inaugurate this new covenant and that it will not be for the descendants of Abraham alone.

'It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the survivors of Israel; I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.'

This new covenant will be for everyone. This is the covenant inaugurated by Jesus.

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This brings us on to the second theme which is the significance of the name ‘Jesus’. We know Mary’s son a Jesus but that is actually a Greek form of the Hebrew name Yeshua, or as we would say in English ‘Joshua’. The name means “The Lord saves” or “the Lord sets free”, “the Lord rescues” or “the Lord heals”. His very name proclaims that Jesus is the one who liberates.

In the Old Testament we hear of God’s people being held as slaves in the land of Egypt but God sends Moses to liberate them. God is a God who sets people free. But that freedom is completed when the people are lead into the land which God promises to them. But is not Moses who does this but his successor as their leader, Joshua. So in the old covenant Joshua leads them to freedom, in the new it is the new Joshua – Jesus.

One of the great themes of the New Testament is that the gift that Jesus gives us is freedom. As Saint Paul tells the Galatian Christians “For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.”

God has made with us a new covenant sealed by the blood of Jesus shed upon the cross. This covenant is made to set us free.

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Many of you will know that I started life as a Methodist. There are many things I value from my Methodist background. One of them is the incredibly demanding Covenant Prayer which Methodist use sometime in the early days of each new year. I’m not going to pray it with you today. It is very demanding and I would hate people to just “go through the motions” with it. Instead I have printed a copy for you to take away. What I want you to do is read it and think about, and ask yourself “Am I willing to say this prayer.” Look at what it means. Understand how demanding it is and then, and only then, pray this prayer. And once you’ve done that tell me that you’ve done it.

On this first day of the year we remember the covenant of freedom inaugurated in Jesus and God’s invitation to each one of us to take that upon ourselves.