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.

Make this our prayer today - Peace on Earth!

Please note disturbing images

Remembering - a key to peacemaking. A sermon for Remembrance Sunday based on Matthew 5: 43 -48

“Waste of Muscle, waste of Brain,
Waste if Patience, waste of Pain,
Waste of Manhood, waste of Health,
Waste of Beauty, waste of Wealth,
Waste of Blood, and waste of Tears,
Waste of Youth’s most precious years,
Waste of ways the saints have trod,
Waste if glory, waste of God,
War!”

Brutal words from a clergyman who in 1914 had encouraged young men in his Worcester parish to join the war effort. Within a year Rev Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy was on the front line as an army chaplain. He was good at it - well as good as any man could be. As well as the usual functions of a priest which he performed well even being awared the Military Cross for running into No Mans Land to help the wounded, he toured the front line with wrestlers and boxers giving morale boosting speeches about the usefulness of the bayonet. But most of all he is remembered for giving cigarettes to soldiers who would soon be going over the top to likely death or at the least serious injury. He wrote a poem about this practice which went as follows;

They gave me names like their nature,
Compacted of laughter and tears,
A sweet that was born of the bitter,
A joke that was torn from the years.

Of their travail and torture, Christ’s fools,
Atoning my sins with their blood,
Who grinned in their agony sharing
The glorious madness of God.

That name! Let me hear it - the symbol
Of unpaid - unplayable debt,
For the men to whom I owed God’s Peace,
I put off with a cigarette.

That poem was called “Woodbine Willie”, and Woodbine Willie became the name given to Kennedy by the troops and is the name through which he has gone down in history.

But as the poem I read at the beginning suggested the Studdert Kennedy who returned to civilian life at the end of the war was very different to the man who had been an enthusiast for war ain 1914. He had seen to much. Unlike many he did not lose his faith but he lived out the last decade of his life as a committed socialist and pacifist.

Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy had come to see the reality of war and was shocked to his core by it. He was by no means the first to experience this. Death and destruction are always disturbing and hard to make sense of. Years before reflecting on the Boer Wars Thomas Hardy had written a poem that has always haunted me entitled, “The man he killed.” The final verse is especially poignant;

Yes, quaint and curious war is!
You shoot a fellow down
You’d treat if met where any bar is,
Or help to half - a crown.

But long decades after the deaths of Hardy and Studdert Kennedy, war goes on being a terrible reality with the most striking change being that in the past century the changing nature of war has meant increasingly large numbers of civilian casualties.

And so today we remember. We look back in some cases to people we have known and loved who were killed or injured in conflict or who had their lives in some way or other changed.

For me the person I think of most on this day is an uncle of mine. One of three brothers who had previously not even travelled as far from their homes as Plymouth, he experienced the trauma of losing one of his legs as a result I understand of so called friendly fire. I recall that today was the one day when he would absent himself from morning worship. After all he remembered every day. My father was twice wounded including injuries on Hill112 a battled in which 320 soldiers from the Duke of Cornwall Light Infantry died = injuries concerning which his hospitalisation probably saved him from some of the worst fighting on the road to Berlin. But of that he rarely spoke. What we did hear about was the officer for whom he had been a batman. Many a time he would recount how this officer had been very enthusiastic in a way which had terrified him. Indeed the officer had been killed. And the story stopped there for about 60 years. But then as a funeral director he was called to arrange the funeral of a bank worker whose wife belonged to our church. Moments after arriving he noticed a photograph. It was he discovered the lady’s first husband and yes it was the officer whose batman he had been. The visit became much longer than was normal as the two of them reminisced. And it opened up Dad to telling more of his war experiences.

Yes today is a day for very real human experiences. But even if we did not have them it would still be right to remember today. For this day is about a debt of honour to those whom we as a nation have sent in harm’s way. It is a day in which we take seriously the sacrifices of those whose lives were cut short and resolve that their stories must never be forgotten, a day in which we remember that if we have no knowledge of the names upon our memorials, every one of them is known by name and loved by God.

So today we remember them whatever their individual stories recognising that those in whose memory the poppies fell last night in the Royal Albert Hall were so very often ordinary young men caught up in extraordinary circumstances and terrifying dangers.

But as we look back we also look forwards. Visitors to Yad Vashem In Jerusalem are reminded, “Remembrance is the secret to redemption.” And this echoes in so many ways the Hebrew Bible where time and again the people are exhorted to remember. For if we do not remember we fail to know who we are and we too often fail to learn the lessons of the past. And today we know the need to learn the lessons of the past so that one day humanity might discover the way of peace and war might be no more and those who once were enemies might find a path to reconciliation and even comradeship.

But we are gathered in a church. Jesus may speak of loving enemies with the change of perspective that this implies. Yet there are those who would say that all too often people of religion have been a cause of conflict rather than a force for peace. And there are times when that analysis is right. Yet I want to argue this morning that we can be the peacemakers that Jesus calls us to be.

Let me develop this further.

Firstly we having a calling to work for peace between people of faith. This means that rather than envisaging the clash of civilisations that was talked about post September 11th, we have a calling to create a healthy relationship between faith communities. This is one of the purposes of interfaith dialogue. Hans Kung the Roman Catholic theologian puts this well when he says:

“There will be no peace among the nations without peace among the religions. There will be no peace among the religions without dialogue among the religions."

Secondly in a world with scarce resources, injustice is often a cause of war. Look to the scriptures and you find that justice is a recurring theme. See that one of the greatest moral crusades in recent years, the Jubilee 2000 campaign for debt cancellation for the poorest countries has as its inspiration the Jubilee vision that can be found in the little visited book of Leviticus.

Thirdly faith challenges us not just to see things through our eyes or that of our country. When Jesus suggests that rather than emphasise the speck in the eyes of others we should take note of the plank in our own eyes. This means that not just individuals but movements and nations need not just to see their own propaganda but see ourselves as others see us - you know a little thing called empathy.

Then fourthly we need not to let go of the many biblical visions for peace such as the visions of swords being turned into ploughshares, spears into pruning hooks, a time when nations cease training for war, natural enemies lying down together in peace and of a city where death and pain are no more.

And fifthly we need to hold on to a view that people of all races and nations are special in God's sight

Let me tell you a story from the Bosnian conflict.

A reporter covering the conflict whilst in Sarajevo saw a young girl shot by a sniper. He threw down his note pad and ran to the girl and a man who had just picked her up before helping them both into his car.

As the reporter drove, the man holding the bleeding child begged him to drive faster, giving increasingly desperate updates on the girl’s condition. Sadly by the time they got to the hospital, the girl was dead. Together the two men went to wash the blood off their hands and clothes. After a bit the man who had held the girl, turned to the journalist and said:

“This is a terrible task for me. I must go and tell her father that his child os dead. He will be heartbroken.”

The reporter was stunned. Looking at the grieving man, he stuttered out the words;

“But I thought she was your child.”

The man looked up and replied:

“But aren’t they all our children?”

And he was right. All someone’s children! All God’s children!

For whatever the race, whatever the creed, all are the children of God. And God’s heart is the first to break at the pains of war. This was not how it was meant to be.

I began with Woodbine Willie, a man who knew the realities of war all too well. I end with another man who knew the realities of war all too well, Dwight Eisenhower, Supreme Allied Commander in World War 2 and later the 34th President of the USA. Late in his life he reflected on war with these words;

“I’d like to think that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it.”

But that requires peacemakers. So today as we rightly honour the fallen with poppies, silence and prayers, as we commit ourselves to the living who suffer the consequences of war, we resolve also to do our part in peacemaking that death and pain might be no more and God’s peace, shalom, be experienced by God’s diverse community of children.

Yes, we will remember them!

Christmas Letter to Arnold Methodist Church magazine

Christmas is getting ever closer. As is usual at this time of year there seems to be so much to do and so little time to do it. Still it is important that we once more grapple with the meaning of the season.

The gospel offer rich narratives concerning the coming of Jesus.

Luke portrays a happening on the margins of society. He tells us of young pregnant girl who responds to her situation with both obedience and a somewhat feisty spirit in her song, Magnificat, in which she speaks of a transformation in which the seemingly unimportant people will be raised up at the expense of those who had hitherto ruled the roost. Moved like pawns on a chess board by the mighty Roman Empire, they come to Bethlehem where the child is born. But there is no reception by the powers of the day. Instead it is those who would be regarded as of no great significance who meet the Holy Family - shepherds and quiet faithful souls such as Simeon and Anna. For Luke the coming of Jesus takes place among those who would be seen as the disposables.Yet Luke with a bit of a subversive edge shows many of the titles commonly granted to Caesar Augustus being more truly belonging to Jesus.

Matthew tells us of visitors. In his case they are a different type of outsider. Through him we meet the magi who would have been foreigners with a different faith allegiance.Meanwhile there is no response from the religious professionals. And Israel's King, Herod the Great, who despite his propaganda is not truly Jewish and who owes his position solely to Rome, actually wishes the child harm leading the Holy Family to seek refuge in the same Egypt where their forefathers had once been slaves. Matthew will remind us of ancient Jewish prophecies which he will present Jesus as fulfilling
while daring to suggest that God's salvation is wider than many had envisaged.

Mark and John offer no nativity stories. However, John's Gospel begins with a prologue which is rich in meaning. He tells of The Word present with God at creation before making the remarkable claim as he introduces Jesus - "The Word became flesh and lived among us." This is the good news of Christmas that God has entered into human living through this Jesus.

These are but tasters of the things we will be contemplating in coming weeks. For here is rich treasure. The coming of Jesus demonstrates God's love for the world and through Jesus' birth and all that flows from it, things can never be the same. The light has entered even the darkest of places and can never be put out!

May your Christmas be a blessed time.

The price of armaments

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. The world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children....This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from an iron cross."

Dwight Eisenhower

The way of love - A non lectionary sermon based on Mark12:28 - 34

So one of the experts in the Law asks Jesus what is the most important instruction in the Torah Law, not an uncommon question given that according to rabbinic tradition there are some 613 commandments within the Torah covering a wide variety of issues. So what lies at the heart of this question?

What most scholars believe is being asked for here is not so much the most important commandment but that which sums up the intent of Torah Law, that which demonstrates the principles from which Torah is derived. The prophet Micah had in a sense tried to answer this question centuries before when he had proclaimed;

“And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”

Indeed the question was very current around the time of Christ. The great Rabbi Hillel had offered the answer;

“What you hate for yourself, do not do to your neighbour.”

Another rabbi, Akiba, offered what might sound a familiar answer;

“You shall love your neighbour as yourself.”

Jesus offers a reply that takes two parts. First he looks back to Deuteronomy where we find the Shema which is so important to the Jewish people, the command to love the One God with all our being. Then he visits Leviticus where we find the command to love our neighbour as ourselves.

What makes the response of Jesus of importance to us today is the link that he makes between love of God and love of others. We can easily separate the two but the relationship between them is at the heart of Christian proclamation. Hear for a moment the words of the Apostle John which affirm this connection;

“If anyone says, ‘I love God’ but hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God, who he has not seen. And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.”


Now let’s be real as to the issue here. Love cannot be commanded. If on my first date with Andrea I ordered her to love me and ultimately marry me, a slapped face is the least I would have got. Emotions quite simply cannot be commanded by another. But that is not what this is about. The Greek word for love in this scripture is agape which is about actions. So what this is about is not romantic day dreaming but the actions of the love that seeks the best for the other party. What matters here is the actions that show an appreciation of the value of God and of others allied to a response to both God and others.

Now at this stage of this sermon I guess I could talk about the actions that can point to agape love of God. But hey time is short and what I want to stress is how this love of God is expressed through our dealings with others.

Now let us be clear that Christians are by no means the only people to love others. I think back to my undergraduate days and recall that most of those who visited the Vietnamese boat people or took part in the other Community Relations activities were not professing Christians. So too many of the people I have seen responding to international disasters through charitable activities would not claim the name of Christ. Likewise earnest people I have met at Nottingham Occupation for Global Change, people expressing serious concerns about the future of vulnerable people, people who talk about the need of a more love influenced politics and economics with great sincerity, come from a variety of faith and non faith perspectives. Claim that we are the only people to show true love and we delude ourselves but make no mistake love is at the heart of being a follower of Jesus.

And yet a warts and all exploration of Christian history shows that all too often those who have been aware of the love of God in Christ have allowed that love to be used as a cause of violent hatred. We see it in the Crusades when the slaughter of Muslims and even the wrong type of Christian was in Eamon Duffy’s words attributed by the highest spiritual authorities as “meritorious violence.” And the slaughters associated with post Reformation conflict were little better with the Thirty Years War being a religious conflict that prematurely ended the lives of close on 20% of the population of Central Europe. Add the killings of possibly millions of people, mainly women, for witchcraft and you get a clear picture that all too often love of God has been expressed in violent hatred of those who are deemed to be the enemies of God.

But Jesus reminds us that this is not how it should be. For when he says to love our neighbour he offers no safe instruction for us to hide behind but as demonstrated in the parable of the Good Samaritan a call for us to love precisely those whom it is not easy to love. As Dorothy Day who founded the Catholic Worker Movement put it;

“I really only love God as much as the person I love least.”

Let’s do a brief case study. Will Campbell is a Baptist minister in the USA. He also has quite a history as an activist being involved in a number of causes including opposition to the Vietnam War in which connection he helped many draft resisters find sanctuary in Canada. He has opposed the death penalty and indeed abortion but most of all he is remembered for his involvement in the civil rights campaign concerning which he was the only white person present at the founding of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference by Martin Luther King.

All well and good but there came the time when he realised that he was less a minister than a rather doctrinaire social activist. He had begin to write off those who were on the other side of the barricades, even to hate them. And so without surrendering the causes that were dear to him, he began to engage with and to minister to those who had been his enemies even members of that most repugnant of groups, the Ku Klux Klan. I’m not sure that was particularly wise but I cannot escape the validity of his observation, “Jesus died for bigots as well!”

And so he did! You see what Jesus is doing in this scripture is calling us into a way of life where radical love is at the heart of our being. If I were to recommend 5 films that every Christian should consider watching, one of my choices would without doubt be Chocolat. In it there is a rigid religious scene of an oppressive nature. The Comte is at the heart of it and writes the sermons for the young priest Pere Henri. That is until on the eve of Easter he succumbs to temptation and stuffs himself with chocolate. Set free to preach without his mentor the young priest who has observed and indeed been complicit in the culture of exclusion of those whose lifestyle does not fit, finally grasps what faith is about as in a stuttering voice he proclaims to packed church on Easter Day that rather than preach on Christ‘s divinity:

“I want to talk about Christ’s humanity, I mean how he lived his life on earth: his kindness, his tolerance. We must measure our goodness, not by what we don’t do, what we deny ourselves, what we resist, or who we exclude. Instead, we should measure ourselves by what we embrace, what we create, and who we include.”
And that is inclusion unlimited even reaching Will Campbell’s bigots. For the way proclaimed by Jesus is the way that declares all to be of value - and that includes ourselves for the love we are invited to show to neighbours is a love we can match to ourselves. We’re alright!

And knowing that we prepare to go to the table where we are reminded of what it is to be accepted by God.