Out of that boat! - A Sermon based on Mark 1: 14-20

It is that Kairos moment in Mark’s gospel - the appointed time  when God acts. The preludes are over and now Jesus marches back into Galilee with an urgent message to proclaim.

And what is that message? Well it is about the kingdom or as some would prefer to put it the Kingship of God. A message that will bring with it great division.

Even the concept of a Kingdom of God is enough to make some mutter. Back a thousand year before God alone was seen as king. But a movement for a monarchy had taken roots and although the prophet Samuel had warned of the downside of such a root, eventually the people got their King. Saul had started well but gone badly wrong. David though flawed was seen as the greatest of Israel’s Kings even if the extent of his kingdom is hotly debated. After that Solomon had brought division and the two kingdoms had been ruled by what in the main was a pretty rum collection of Kings before their ultimate downfalls. After that Israel had beeen ruled by outsiders with even the Herodian dynasty itself being despised and ultimately dependent on Rome.

Now Jesus begins to point to a Kingdom of God whose values will be so very different to those that had held sway for a thousand years. Now he says God is going to break through. And the beginning of this transformation will take place in Galilee - a relatively multi cultural area linked to trade routes in a way Jerusalem was not, Galilee whose land and resources had long been treated as spoils of war to be given to soldiers and politicians who rarely bothered to live there and who certainly bore no allegiance there, Galilee where the indigenous population who mainly worked in agriculture and fishing lived at little more than bare subsistence level.

And this Kingdom says Jesus is good news. But good news with a difference. For the Greek word (Evaggelion) had traditionally linked with the victories and successes of Caesar. But now it is transformed. For this good news has nothing to do with Caesar or any of our rulers. On the contrary instead it has everything to do with Jesus. A different type of good news is now unleashed!

But wait a moment! Our gospel reading began on a note of darkness. It told of the arrest of John the Baptist who will later be executed at a drunken party/ Why? For speaking truth to authority. You see the background of his arrest was his speaking out about King Herod Antipas replacing his wife with that of his brother. An act not just of personal immorality but an act with appalling political effects. For thanks to the actions of Antipas, the father of his disposed of wife would in AD36 launch a war on Antipas inflicting considerable damage.

So take note, the Kingdom of God is not presented by Mark as emerging at a holiness convention. Far from it Mark is keen that we should see it breaking through against a background of violence and the misuse of power.

And what is the message of Jesus to those who will listen? It is to repent and believe. Now let’s be clear that in this he is not speaking of a one off action. The Greek tensing implies that what Jesus is saying is that his hearers should keep on repenting and keep on believing. But what does this mean? Well repenting is about moving in a new direction. But keeping on moving in new directions is not something we can just do for ourselves. To suggest such would imply that we don’t need God’s grace but instead can make do with God’s patience as we keep on trying and failing. No, repentance takes us from our failings to God being where we place our trust. And this fits what Jesus says for the Greek word pestered is not so much about intellectual agreement as it is about radical trust. So when Jesus speaks here about repenting and believing what he is urging us to do is to be prepared continually to change our direction through exercising a radical trust in him as our guide.

But right as we expect big action on the part of this new Kingdom we get a surprise. For to our astonishment Jesus begins to call working people to be his followers. The men he chooses are fishermen at a time when fishing was in a state of unrest. An overtaxed occupation that depended on licences from Caesar who owned the Sea of Galilee. Their lives are tough but now at a time when such men could be expected to hold on to their livelihoods like grim death, Jesus calls on them to change direction and to embrace uncertainty by exercising radical trust in becoming his followers. It’s a crazy suggestion we might protest and yet two sets of brothers leave the world they know and allow Jesus to re orientate their lives. Now says Jesus they will become “fishers of men.” What does this mean? Well it doesn’t seem to be so much about evangelism as we know it - not that there is anything wrong with such evangelism as a concept. In the Old Testament scriptures fishing is often used as a metaphor for bringing the practitioners of injustices to justice as well as as a metaphor for teaching people to move from ignorance to wisdom. Whatever, this calling marks a radical departure for Simon and Andrew, for James and John. And it is a departure that shows Jesus working in community to bring in this new Kingdom.

So where does this leave us today. Are we content with business as usual? Or are we prepared to be moved by Jesus into places where we are vulnerable and in need of his help? I invite each of you to review where you are at at this moment. Don’t focus on your inadequacies. After all the followers picked by Jesus had bucket fulls of inadequacies. With Jesus we all have a part to play. Not one person here is without gifting. So I ask again is God calling you to exercise radical trust by responding to a calling of Jesus that takes you where you have never been or expected to be before?

And as I invite you to ponder this, I remind you that many of the Gods we have built up have failed. In the West we face a crisis of confidence at a time when markets have failed disastrously reeking havoc with many peoples’ lives. Our trust has been destroyed just as the trust of people in a very different system in East Europe collapsed two decades ago. For whatever the philosphies and idolatries that have been proclaimed, they have alike placed too much belief in themselves and too little respect for the people they have lorded it over. Jesus bids us to look at his domination free kingdom that offers respect and dignity to all. Now surely is another kairos moment when we are invited to let go of that which holds us in chains and time to get out of them boats so that we might embark on a journey with Jesus

Why pray?

A real treasure on prayer by Ben Myers. Enjoy.

Why pray?

Herod - then and now A non lectionary sermon based on Matthew 2:13-23

Councillor David Horton gets it wrong. In The Vicar of Dibley the local councillor gets asked to play the part of Herod in the local nativity. Unable to accept that poor shepherds might be closer to God than Israel’s King - albeit a puppet King who danced to Rome’s instructions - Horton subverts the nativity by giving sweets to the children leading one to pitifully reply;

“I Love you Herod.”

The reality is that Herod could have gone a fair way to writing “The Prince” fifteen hundred years before Machiavelli wrote his masterpiece of political cynicism.

He had ability. He left quite a legacy of building projects. And he knew how to play diplomacy somehow managing to walk a tightrope between the demands of his Roman masters and a Jewish people who never regarded him as one of their own.

His reign begun with an act of bloodshed in which he massacred practically the whole of the Sanhedrin. It ended with a King by now crippled with extreme pain having a great number of distinguished people brought to Jericho with instructions (not carried out as it turns out) left for them to be killed on Herod’s death so that his death might be accompanied by displays of grieving.

As for his family, he killed a number of relatives including at least three sons and his favourite wife. Not for nothing did Caesar Augustus comment that it was better to be such a man’s swine than to be his son.

So David Horton aside, most of us feel discomfort at Herod figuring in the Christmas story. Now to be fair theologians have long debated the historicity of the story of the massacre of children in Bethlehem. Some argue that this story is more about Matthew’s gospel proclamation than it is about history. Certainly there are no historical records that attest to such a massacre although it might be argued that if confined to Bethlehem the numbers killed would be small and thus ignored. Quite frankly it strikes me as a case of you pays your money and makes your choice.

But the story is such that it should never be ignored. It is a story that takes us into the darkness of the world. It is a powerful response to the sort of facile optimism that fails to take evil seriously and believes we can simply be happy all the day. Indeed it reminds us that it is for a world of imperfections that sometimes are horrifically grotesque that Jesus came.

In fact in this regard Matthew offers a similar understanding to John’s Gospel. There the evangelist speaks of light entering a world in which there is darkness. Matthew demonstrates this through the Herod story. And Christian hope suggests that wherever the darkness’s of cruelty and injustice exist Christ shines a light and bids us to join in incarnational ministry by bringing light to the darkest corners of our communities and world.

Back to the story. The Holy Family under threat are forced as others had been in previous centuries to seek refuge in Egypt that had once been a place of bondage. Israel has become unsafe. Only in Egypt can they be safe. And in this we see a story constantly repeated today  as millions of people live as refugees across the globe often badly treated which makes it good news that next year Nottingham City Council are set to make Nottingham one of a number of Cities of Santuary in the UK. Indeed according to Matthew when the Holy Family return home after Herod’s death they are forced to return not to Bethlehem but due to the brutality of Archelaus who now rules in Judea to go north to Nazareth and the relative safety of an area ruled by another son of Herod  where in the meantime there had been a devastating massacre by Rome’s army but a short time earlier less than an hours walk away.

But this is a story that must not be left in the past. For it is in so many ways an ongoing story. Indeed I would suggest that what should concern us more today is the ongoing presence of Herod. Look to resource conflicts around the world in places such a Congo. Look to the sale of weaponry to countries that cannot afford the bare necessities for their own peoples. Look to tyrants waging wars on their own people as with Assad’s Syria to use but one of many examples. Look to the use of torture in so many countries and it being ignored when convenient by other counties and yes standby for gloomy revelations of our country being caught up in at the very least covering up of some renditions to the torturers of Damascus and Tripoli amongst others during the past decade. Look to those who have sought refuge but are deported to places such as Uzbekistan as has been British practice for a number of years. Look to gang war on the streets. Look to the continued rampage of diseases such as HIV and the all too common failure to provide the necessary drugs to sufferers and would be sufferers. Look to the lives blighted by alcohol, drugs and yes the insidious disease that is gambling. Look to the homes where there is choice between consuming heat or food. Look to the homes where unemployment low pay or whatever mean than not just adults but children also lose the capacity to hope. Look to a rich west where incredibly many are consigned to dependence on food banks. Just look!

For this Jesus will soon tell us that he has come for the most vulnerable. He will speak of bringing life with abundance.  Still he struggles with Herod.

But because we recognise with John’s gospel that darkness cannot put out the light of Christ, we move forwards even into 2012 with hope in our hearts. We gaze in wonder at possibilities for transformation knowing that being a friend of justice is part of the calling of followers of Jesus. And then engage with the cries for justice because anything else is playing games!

A boy in a manger - A sermon for Christmas Day based on Luke 2: 1-20

It’s all about a baby boy. Lying in a manger he is the epitome of helplessness. No control over body function but a tendency to exercise those lungs to bursting point when hungry or just uncomfortable - that is what he’s about.

His dependency on a mother’s care is absolute. He just needs to be held, to be loved, to be comforted, to be cared for. That is all that matters to him. Oh sure he is born into a harsh world of conflict but that does not matter a fig to him. A Jewish baby boy he has no interest in your race or nationality. You can be a a fellow Jew, a Roman or even a Palestinian, these things matter not to him. Nor does he care about our gender or our respectability - even our lack of it. He just wants to be loved.

In that he is not dissimilar from us in our infancy. But whereas we easily lose our innocence and become cynical an judgemental he never loses it. The innocent acceptance of all is something he takes into adulthood and even to a public execution.

All around him are the signs of rejection but he does not care. The circumstances of his birth are the stuff of gossip. His early teenage mother is at the centre of a scandal and the equivalents of News International journalists are all over the case but he doesn’t care. He just wants her love. And in times ahead he will be the defender of tainted women.

And when his first visitors are shepherds is he bovvered. No way! It doesn’t matter to him that smelly shepherds were at this time regarded as shift dishonest people not deemed fit to provide evidence in a court. After all they took the time to visit him and to make a fuss of him when the respectable had gone walkabout. In fact he’s going to go on mixing with the sort of people who are no better than they ought to be. And religious professionals will tut about it but does he care! As Desmond Tutu puts it his standards are “quite low!”

Later he will be visited by astrological types from the East - foreigners whose religious understandings he will be told are quite mixed up. And even if their gifts are just a little bit strange for a baby he will be grateful that they gave him the time. And later he will build bridges with another group of semi foreigners with upside down religion, the Samaritans even telling a story in which one of these despised peoples bears a passing likeness to himself.

But of course he will not be immune to harsh side of life. Israel’s King, by now a paranoid tyrant, will seek to kill him. Herod - please note not a real Jew but an Idumean hated by many of the people he ruled over - will use his soldiers like many a despot if not to save the regime to ensure dynastic succession. And this baby will no longer be safe in the town in which he was born but have to flee as a refugee becoming one of those asylum seekers against whom the Daily Mail of his day would doubtless rage. And when he moves to Nazareth he will be moving but an hours walk from  the scene of wanton destruction by imperial Rome at Sepphoris in the aftermath of Herod’s death - whose rebuilding at least gave some work to craftsmen such as Joseph. And yes his teachings will be at their sharpest when it comes to exposing injustices and cruelty for he knows these things are crippling to victims and also to perpetrators.

And later in adulthood he will just go on involving all sorts of people in an undemanding cycle of love. From the beginnings of his ministry when he proclaims good news for the poor he will be in solidarity will all manner of outcasts. Yet he will not champion violence against the wrongdoers. Even Roman military officers will be helped in their moments of need. So when we envisage Jesus as being on the side of the good guys he never hates the bad guys. Perhaps Will Campbell has it right. The only white man present when Martin Luther King formed his Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Campbell later sought to minister to klansmen and rednecks over whisky explaining when challenged about this;

“We’re all bastards but God loves us anyway.”

And that’s the way that Jesus will live even though such inclusive love will make him enemies and ultimately lead to his torture and a public, humiliating execution.

But all of that is for the future. The question now is will you give your love to this bundle of humanity? Will you like him embrace humanity even in its less appetising forms and even when it disappoints? Will you take the risk of journeying with and following this little boy? And will you open your hearts and minds to the claim that God is uniquely in this boy? And that in him we meet the truly human and the truly Divine, that in him we God made flesh, the means of our salvation and the pattern for our living.

A very political Christmas to you all - A non lectionary sermon based on Luke 2: 1-2-

Well may I be the first to wish you A Very Political Christmas

. Yes you heard me right. I wished you A Very Political Christmas. Sure I know that some of you are thinking that this time I have lost it and gone too far.

 But I repeat I wish you a Very Political Christmas. Not in the party political sense I would add for whilst political parties are perfectly legitimate as means to work for the implementation of cherished goals, they inevitably disappoint even the most committed loyalist. For they are very human organisations and all fall short at times so that to render any political party as above criticism would quite clearly be an act of idolatry.

No when I wish you a Very Political Christmas I am thinking in terms of power and how it is exercised. However you might date the birth of Jesus and to be honest estimates very widely, he was clearly born into a world dominated by the Roman Empire and the figure of Caesar Augustus. Luke’s community for whom he writes several decades later is also dominated by that Empire and by this time Jesus followers are experiencing difficult times with the Empire. So it is worth pointing out that Luke in his account of the birth of Jesus does not hold his punches when it comes to challenging and offending Rome. We see this in the Census story which suggests an empire moving people around like pieces on a chessboard.

 And yet in so doing they unwittingly prepare the ground for the decidedly non imperial Jesus. Luke like Matthew sets the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem which has powerful connotations given that it is the town from which Israel’s greatest king David came. Hearers of the gospel would at once be jumping to the conclusion that just as David had seen off external threats so to might this new born King of whom Luke tells. But Luke goes further. We often miss the offence when he uses terms such as Lord or Saviour to describe the new born child. But these were the terms which were now being used of Rome’s emperor. Yes Luke is setting up Jesus as being truly that which Rome claimed its emperors to be. He is affirming that the new kid on the block or more accurately in the manger is the true Lord and true saviour. It is as shocking as if in Nazi Germany one other than Hitler was declared as Fuhrer. The very stuff of sedition - for if Jesus is Lord and saviour then the vacancy is filled and it is to him rather than flawed rulers in time and place that we owe our loyalty and allegiance.

 And that is why Jesus continues to be dangerous to the powers. Give him our allegiance and our vision of life and the world begin to change. Caesar Augustus had ended the civil wars of Rome by victory over rivals. At the point of the sword he had brought the pax Romana to the world. This was the peace that came through force and the threat of shock and awe, of retribution. Now comes Jesus with the message of peace for that world but this is not peace from the sword but through the power of love. On Palm Sunday they come into ultimate conflict when through different gates Jesus and Pontius Pilate enter Jerusalem through different gates - Pilate with all the might of Rome and Jesus armed only with seemingly powerless love. And down through the pages of history these two visions have been in timeless conflict. Aye there’s politics in this!

 And we see it also in the characters who fill the story. Sometimes we are tempted to expect god to work through the powerful but Luke’s nativity bypasses any equivalent of the lord Mayor’s banquet. It is instead a story of God at work amongst the marginalised. The Holy Family are incredibly ordinary in many ways. What may be seen as abnormal is the situation into which they are thrust with the possibility of shame in an honour culture which took such things seriously. Indeed there would be those who might argue from an Old Testament understanding that Mary should be stoned to death - shocking situation for a girl who would have been 13 years old at most. The first visitors to the manger would be shepherds whose standing socially was not of the highest order - outsiders with no place in the cultic worship of Israel. And what of where Jesus was born? Tradition often imagines an innkeeper sending Mary and Joseph away - a strange story given Joseph’s ancestry and Mary have relatives but a short distance away.

And this before we consider the tradition of hospitality that is so important in the Middle East. Perhaps here our problem is linguistic. The Greek word translated as Inn is kataluma. It appears elsewhere in Luke’s gospel to refer to the room in which the last supper is celebrated whilst a different Greek word is used by Luke in the parable of the Good Samaritan to refer to a commercial inn. Most probably what we see is the generosity of the have only so much’s who having no room in the guest room invite the Holy Family into the family room which would have had a manger for the animals kept at night on a ,lower level. Indeed what we see here is not the thieving of the wealthy priestly call which years later earns the rage of an adult Jesus but the generosity of the humble. And in this is a contrast. Jesus is welcomed by the lowly whilst he is ignored by the equivalent of the Great and Good to whom we sometimes refer. For what we see in the Luke’s nativity is God working not so much in the centres of power as in the margins.

And by the time Jesus begins his ministry Luke will have him speaking of good news for the poor. Christmas reminds us that Jesus occupies the margins. If we want to put Jesus at the centre of our lives then it is to the margins that we will have to travel. That is why Giles Fraser the until recently Dean of St Paul’s suggested that if Jesus was born today it might well be in an Occupation camp. In a week we shall celebrate his birth. We shall rejoice in the good news of Immanuel - God with us! In him Divinity has entered our world. Divine love has invaded our very being. And the world can never be the same again. His coming gives us direction, hope and meaning. His coming invites us into a new way of living. Now our loyalty is to him. Caesar in ancient on modern forms stands under his judgement.

So today rejoice! Embrace a political Christmas. For we put our whole beings in the hands of the one who is love for all times and for all peoples and who graciously invites us to make that journey of discovery and love with him that we might be transformed and be agents of the gospel of transformation.

 So I say it again. A Very Political Christmas to you all!

Hope rising - A sermon for Advent 1 Yr B based on Mark13: 24-37

“Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day I can hear her breathing.”

Words from the Indian novelist activist Arundhati Roy in an inspirational speech at the World Social Forum in 2004.

And don’t we all dream of another world? For if we seriously engage with realities that surround us, we become all to well aware of their shortcomings. So time and again as we turn the pages of history we find the dreaming for a new and better world. This has inspired reform movements in every age and today is at the heart of the Occupy movement who seek new answers in an age in which institutions have failed people big time.

Jesus also lived in a world where people dared to dream. He was part of a people who had all too often suffered under the tyranny of others who cared not a jot for them. From childhood he would have heard the stories of exile and occupation. Indeed the stories of violence would not be academic for him as he was brought up in Nazareth just a short journey from Sepphoris where people had fought for their freedom in the aftermath of the death of King Herod the Great only for Roman legions to march in, burn the city down and reduce its people to virtual slavery according to the historian Josephus.

Mark’s community likewise were living in a time of dreams that would be cruelly dashed. Most commentators estimate that Mark’s Gospel was written during the Jewish revolt against Rome which took place from 66=70AD. Many of the signs to which Jesus alludes regarding wars, earthquakes and persecution were present realities for Mark’s community. The social unrest which underlies many of the stories of Jesus had reached explosion point. And so Roman cohorts and their supporters in the Jewish clerical aristocracy were driven out of the city. Debt records were burned. But divisions broke out between various Jewish factions and ultimately the power of Rome prevailed following a vicious scorched earth campaign which culminated in the very destruction of Jerusalem.

Mark faced the challenge which Jesus followers face in every age - how to interpret the Jesus way in concrete situations. Clearly Mark does not feel the rebellion to be wise. Rather than encourage his community to join in as a number of Christians did, his urging is to engage with the way of Jesus and instead to keep watch. And to keep watch by looking to that which Jesus himself accomplishes. The section that speaks of “those days” is not merely about a time in the future but actually sees that future being given shape by the story of Jesus and his Passion. It is in this that the future is given hope and not in the politics of violence which then as now all too often replaces one form of oppression with another. For hope in the darkest hour is found not in the passions of hatred but in the self giving that takes place on a wooden cross.

Like past generation we face our share of challenges today. An economic system has gone to rack and ruin throughout much of the world leaving many peoples’ life experiences severely damaged. Conflicts take place out of religious, ethnic and ideological divisions. The planet itself faces the ravages of environmental neglect to an extent that issues of sustainability are all too urgent. This is hardly a time for people of faith to retreat into bunkers. And Mark would certainly suggest no such thing.

Indeed Mark goes on to recount two parables of Jesus. The first concerning a fig tree points to a future in which the comforts of an old order are no longer to be present. Instead Jesus is close by, at the very gates.

The second parable tells of a man going on a journey who leaves the slaves in charge to carry on the work whilst keeping awake. In this we see perhaps an echo of Gethsemane when the disciples are called to keep awake, something they fail to do.

And in this we see a clue as to what Advent is about. It is as if the whole world has become Gethsemane. As history carries on it often gloomy course, the followers of Jesus are called to be alert, to keep awake not for the purposes of idle speculation but to be on the look out for every sign of genuine transformation that brings hope and dignity into the world so bringing meaning to the very processes of living.

Were another world not possible I think at times we would go mad. But like Arundhati Roy, like a litany of prophets in scripture or indeed subsequently, like those who live in tents we are encouraged to dream of another world, a world in which the humble are lifted up, a world in which the poor are fed, a world in which no human life is treated as disposable. And our dreams find meaning in the story, the presence and the promises of Jesus. For he tells us of a kingdom like no other, a kingdom of justice, peace and joy. He tells us through the Revelation granted to St John of a world in which death, mourning, crying and pain are no more. He is the one in whom the long march of history find its completion.

And so on this first Sunday of Advent, we see the dawning of hope even for a world where hope is all too often a commodity in short supply.

Our comrade King - A sermon for Christ the King Sunday based on Matthew 25: 31 -46

I always feel just a little ambivalent when I see that Christ the King Sunday has come round again. I guess that is because Kings don’t exactly score highly with me. Certainly the Kings who are mentioned in our Old Testament going right back to when Samuel anointed Saul were on the whole a pretty rum bunch. I guess I could count on one hand the appealing ones.

And then studying British history back in school days a similar picture emerges. William the Conqueror, Richard the Lion Heart and Henry V111 were the big stars and each of them was responsible for a whole lot of bloodshed. And to make it worse each of them had the gall to claim they were doing God’s will.

And then last Sunday I found myself looking back to the First World War when a number of participating countries had monarchs who were related to each other - albeit with varying degrees of power within their countries.

Not that others who have claimed power have been any better. The unsavoury figures who emerged between the 2 World Wars are a powerful reminder of that. And indeed it was the emergence of Benito Mussolini as Italy’s dictator that was a factor in Pope PiusX1 establishing the Festival of Christ the King on the last Sunday in October. Now held on the last Sunday before Advent and celebrated ecumenically it has become an established part of the church year.

So what is the significance of Christ the King Sunday for us today? Well I think it provides a real challenge in how we see the world. Upon the cross of Jesus, Pontius Pilate placed an inscription, “The King of the Jews.” He did this as an insult to a subjugated people for whom he had no real sympathy. And yet he was not so far off the truth. For from the humiliation and pain of a cross Jesus would be more a King than Pilate ever could be.

But this Kingship would be that which subverts our understanding of kingship. For power historically whether exercised by a King or a dictator or indeed a few supposedly democratic leaders, tends to be caught up with domination. We expect the one in power to dominate yet Jesus tells us he has come to serve. Unlike the Kings of his day he did not rule by the sword but his kingship is exercised in love. Unlike the powerful of every age he does not surround himself with the rich and the powerful but instead is found with the poor and despised. Quite simply he turns our notions of kingship upside down.

And nowhere is that more true than in the parable which we have heard this morning. So often Kings are those who bark out the orders. Yet what we have here is the King who becomes a comrade to those whose needs are greatest - the hungry, the outsider, the sick and the prisoner. And that is what we need when our experiences of life are at their worst. Not a commander giving out the instructions but one who is alongside us completely identified with us.

Often we are caught up in hierarchical structures, the church no less than any other body. Often we write some people of as if they have nothing to contribute. But Jesus lives a very different way. He is so caught up with those treated as the disposables that what we do or do not do for them we do or not do for him. Now that we speak of Jesus as a King, are we not challenged to see those who are the needy and hurting as equivalent to royalty?

I think here we have a defining issue for the followers of Jesus. The economics of Europe look set to create an increasing tide of people who are dislocated from society. The problems of disaffected youth look likely to increase and alienation is rising among some within all age groups. These are indeed difficult times. And they present the challenge to us to hold on to the need to treat as special those whose lives are a disappointment to themselves even when they have contributed to that situation in some way or other. If we see others as lesser in value we ultimately demean ourselves.

Our parable ends on a pretty frightening point with a picture of judgement. The language here makes clear the importance that Jesus attaches to how we relate to those treated as the disposables. There is the divide between sheep and goats. And here is a problem in that we are all at times goats for we are all caught up in the injustices of this world. This scripture is dangerous when over literalised for Jesus is hardly the divine torturer. Instead we need to realise that the Judge is the one who loves us the most and the purpose of judgement is to strip our goatness away that we might become the people he wants us to be, the people who see the royalty that is in all.

I was recently reading about the slave trade. We are all aware that the primary victims were the slaves. Yet from reading case studies I found myself realising that those complicit with the trade were also victims in that their involvement with the trade and its attitudes tore away at their own humanity.

That is why I like the idea of Jesus as a comrade King. He is enmeshed in the life of the poor and the vulnerable but he is also enmeshed in our struggles with the dominant religion of the West, consumerism, through which we all too easily become identified. Alongside us he shares in all our struggles pointing us to his Kingdom of justice, peace and joy in which all count.

And so it is that next week we enter once more a new liturgical year in which we shall once more enter into that story of hope, the story of Jesus the comrade King who opens up the possibilities of royal life for all and who though executed by a tinpot dictator is raised by God to the Kingship unlike any other.