Sermon: John 18: 33-37/Revelation1: 4b- 8

Today is Christ the King Sunday, the last Sunday before Advent, and so our readings are about Jesus as king and our focus is on God's kingdom.

Of course, we live in a kingdom! And our king, as his mother before him, calls himself a servant of the people – he is in his role to serve us. This is a model from our faith, from Christianity – the model of the servant king.  But, still, how different to the way Jesus lived out his kingship.  In spite of all that King Charles does and all the places he visits and his heart for our planet.  In spite even of his recent cancer diagnosis and treatment, King Charles remains insulated from the pain and suffering in the world.  He lives in palaces and travels in entourages and eats banquets and receives the best care for his medical needs.

Already then, we start to identify the differences between King Charles and King Jesus.  No palaces for Jesus.  No luxuries.  No privileged lifestyle that sets him above those around him.  Jesus is not able to walk away from pain.  It is all around him as he teaches and heals, and the climax of his time on earth finds him unable to avoid one of the most painful deaths that humans have ever invented.  This is a very different king and a very different kingdom.

 
Our Gospel reading today gives us John’s version of the conversation between Jesus and Pilate.  There are not many words here and yet so much is said. You can feel the space between these two men as they respond to the situation they find themselves in.

Let’s look at Jesus’ words in verse 36.  He says: My kingdom is not of this world.  If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews.  But now my kingdom is from another place.

When we think of God’s Kingdom – the kingdom of which Jesus is king – these words are vital.  Jesus’ kingdom is not of this world. Jesus says that if his kingdom was of this world his servants would be fighting.  But this is not what God’s kingdom is about: we do not need to fight to protect Jesus, to stop him being hurt or killed.

Jesus’ coronation was with a crown of thorns that pierced him.  Of course, this crown was given to Jesus to mock him.  But it is also a potent symbol of his kingdom.  He is a king who does not leave others to suffer – he suffers with his people.  It is very apt that our suffering servant King’s first crown is one of thorns that brings him pain. 

We are not Christians to avoid pain – that is not how it works. As we reflect over the past year I know that suffering has been quite central in the experience of some of us. Suffering is never easy, it is never something that we choose for ourselves and it is not what God desires.  But I wonder if we can find some encouragement as we recognise that Christ’s kingdom is born out of pain, and suffering, and poverty. 

For me this raises a question: where is Christ’s kingdom being born into our world at the moment?  In the suffering that we see on our TV screens and hear on our radios, God seems absent.  I do not believe for one moment that God causes any of that suffering and pain.  I do not believe it is his will.  But I do believe that his kingdom can be found there – that Christ himself can be found in that pain: he is there with the suffering; with the injured; with the maimed; with the hungry; with the naked; with the poor and homeless.  If Christ feels absent to us, we may need to look for him in a different place: we may need to look for him amongst the suffering and find him in our own suffering.

Even in these difficult times, when we see suffering all around us, God says to us:  Be still and know that I am God. 

Are you a Miranda fan?  Over the past few years Miranda has struggled with chronic fatigue.  She had to give up the work which she loved and face up to some difficult realities.  I am a fan and on the day I was writing this I listened to an interview with her on the program ‘Young Again’. It was not a big part of what she said but in explaining what she went through and what she learnt she mentioned ‘being still’ – not running from the emotion welling up in her but being still in it.  To find God’s presence in these times of suffering we need to still ourselves: God is always there.  Don’t beat yourself up if God feels absent – that is not what God wants.  Still yourself; just be still; and just trust.

Later in our passage Jesus says (verse 37): You are right in saying I am a king.  In fact, for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth.  Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.

More powerful words.  Jesus says that the reason he came into the world was to testify to the truth, and that everyone who is on the side of truth listens to him.

And Pilate responds, ‘What is truth?’

We live in a world where truth is constantly compromised.  We live in a world where we can not trust what our public figures say; where we can not trust film and photographs.  It feels like there are many, many people in the world currently who would echo Pilate’s words and say, ‘What is truth?’

Different versions of the Bible translate the last words in verse 37 slightly differently, but I wonder, what does it mean to be ‘on the side of the truth’, or to ‘belong to the truth’, or to ‘love truth’?

The opposite of the truth is lies.  We all know how destructive lies can be.  In personal relationships lies destroy trust and love.  This translates and magnifies when lies happen on a community and national level.  Lies undermine love; they undermine trust; they divide people.  God is love and God is one.  God is the opposite of lies: God is truth.  Of course this is one of the descriptions Jesus gives of himself:  I am the way, the TRUTH and the life.

One thing we do as we come to church each week is to confess.  Again, here we find the truth.  We need to bring the truth of our failures to God to mend that relationship with him.  Truth can be difficult to say, and painful to hear, but there is something about the truth that liberates us and cleanses us.  Earlier in John, Jesus talks of ‘knowing the truth and the truth setting us free’.

When truth is painful, or awkward, the temptation is to sweep it under the carpet, or bury it, or ignore it, or to numb ourselves from the pain it causes.  Can I may be just give one example of this?  Climate change is real – it is happening and it is already having a huge impact on people’s lives across the planet.  But it is a hard truth to face.  To be honest, it is an overwhelming truth to face.  So, what do we do?  We ignore it.  We pretend that it is not our problem.  We convince ourselves that there is nothing we can do about it, that we have no responsibility.  We may numb ourselves from the pain it causes, by drinking alcohol, or booking holidays, or going to concerts – we throw ourselves into something else.  I completely understand this.  But I believe also that God wants us to face the truth – it will be painful; it is painful.  We may need to mourn and grieve together but Jesus didn’t just say he was the truth, he also said he was the way and the life.  And here is his model to us: his way is not to avoid the pain and suffering.  His model is to go through the pain and suffering, facing and being the truth, and find the life that is on the other side of this.  Life in all its fullness and colour.  That seems difficult to believe, it may seem impossible, but God’s kingdom is an ‘upside down place’ where truth is found in contradictions: where suffering can bring joy and where death leads to life.
How do we testify to our faith in our current age? We need to seek the truth and face the pain. 

Is there a truth you have swept under the carpet? That you have numbed yourself to.  In God’s ‘not of this world’ kingdom maybe that is something that you need to go away and start facing.  It may bring pain, but God is in that pain, and I believe he will show you the way through it.

Verse 7 of our Revelation reading says:  Look, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him; and all the peoples of the earth will mourn because of him.

When I read this, I thought: why will we be mourning? The answer that came to me is that I will be mourning because I have missed the point of my life here on earth.  Jesus will come with his truth, and I will see my life for the sham it often is.  I will see that I have not faced the truths in this world, I have not grieved, and I have not let myself suffer to find that deeper relationship with my God.

God invites us into his kingdom.  His kingdom which is born in suffering, that abides in his truth and ultimately brings the love and life which we all seek.  I encourage us all to face the truth Christ brings us, to not shy away from the suffering it might bring: to seek that deeper life with our God who is love and longs for us as we long for him.

 

All is Well: A Journey in Contemplation

g Reality

It may seem like a strange question, but: what is reality?  It seems to me that in the clamour of modern life we have lost our hold on what reality is.  Many of us know this through our experiences of social media.  We scroll through posts and know that, whilst we can touch base with people, much of what we see is not ‘real’.  More than ever before, we have the opportunity to curate our own lives and to portray a life that is not real.  We can reach across the ether and ‘hold hands’ with a friend – give them a virtual hug – but this can come at the price of not living in the present: not interacting with the people on our doorstep and the environment in which we live.

Human beings are amazing creatures and the exponential rise of technology means that many of us – especially in developed nations – live lives that are insulated from what it means to be alive.  We don’t have direct contact with the source of the things that enable us to live: our water comes from taps; our food comes from shops; our heating comes through radiators.  We take for granted: shelter; full stomachs; clean water and warmth.  And in the same way that we have lost contact with the physical sources of life, so too have we lost touch with the spiritual source of life.  God/Love gets lost in all the superficial things we hold onto and we seek solace through various forms of addiction – to food, drugs, alcohol, pleasure.  Always seeking more, bigger, better.  Trying to hold on to youth and beauty instead of seeking the inner wisdom that comes from a life in touch with reality.

This is not to say that life is easy.  Life trips us up all the time.  It throws ‘curve balls’ at us that knock us off balance.  And sometimes that fall is exactly what we need.  Sometimes that fall takes us face-to-face with reality and we are able to let go of the things that have blinded us.

It is a hard message to hear, but a true one.  We need to spend some time in darkness, and we need to recognise our current trajectory given our lack of care for our planet.  Human beings are amazing creatures, and yet despite all our knowledge and scientific discoveries we too often run away from the truth.  When there is bad news there is only so much we can take and then we seek comfort – comfort that is often taken at the expense of others who are far away enough for us to ignore.

I struggle with this.  I struggle to live in a world where I know that other people suffer, where the planet is being exploited and destroyed, where it seems that too many of us – and in that I include myself – are too lethargic, or scared, or selfish to act in love for the whole of humanity and the planet.  It is all too much – the problems seem too big to even conceptualise, so I disappear back into my comfort zone.

I believe that God wants us to live in reality.  To face the darkness and, indeed, to dwell in it sometimes.  It is there that we can escape the clamour of the world: we can find God and God can find us.  It seems counterintuitive in many ways and yet it is the pattern of nature - life leads to death and death to life – the very pattern that Christ as a man lived out in his time on earth.  He did not turn his back on the realities of life – he reached out in love and when death sought him out he absorbed the hatred that put him there and accepted his path.  In accepting his path, he found life.

In many ways it seems crazy to be writing these thoughts and ideas under the title of ‘All is well’ when our world is such a mess.  But I honestly believe that when we face the reality and ugliness of our world and ourselves, it is then that God/Love enters us with the reassurance that ‘all is well’, and we become aware of a bigger reality.  A reality that is cosmic and beyond our understanding. We gain a peace that we don’t understand and yet is more real than any we have previously experienced.

Meditation has been described as ‘practising dying’.  In meditation I sit in silence and I let go of all that is inside me: I just sit.  The way of contemplation is a ‘letting go’ not just of the physical, but also of the ego – a letting go of myself.  Jesus taught us to give up our lives and take up our crosses.  Why such a tough request?  Because that is the way of life and peace.  God does not come to punish us in this, he comes to us in Love and wants us to find the Love that he planted in our souls at the very beginning; that he planted in the whole of his creation.

The darkness we experience is sometimes an unknowing.  Whilst I am energised to understand more about how our universe functions, I am conscious that there are always more questions.  Whilst I love to find out more about how people work and to find empathy, I am always faced with people and situations that surprise me and that I don’t understand.  Sometimes I need to let go of the desire to understand and sit in the mystery of it all.  God/Love is mystery and sometimes our journey is a road of un-knowing.  Sometimes we need to unpick what we thought we knew and trust the falling; trust the mystery; trust the darkness.  Let go of our need to be in control and trust that God/Love will always catch us.

Through darkness we find light.  Fighting for justice and peace, valuing our planet and every human life, is not something we can do without this inner journey.  We will burn out; we will lose hope.  We need to do the inner work that takes us to the real reality; that affirms that ‘all is well’.  Then we will live in hope and faith, and love will be our source and our guide.

 

Musing #2:  Soul Searching

Last Sunday I was listening to the news on the radio.  A reporter was talking to a man in Derna, Libya, where the catastrophic flooding took place – as I write it is known to have taken 11,000 lives.  The man had travelled to Derna with a group of his friends.  They were taking a boat out to sea, diving and looking for bodies.  They were bringing the bodies back one by one.  The reporter asked how he was coping with what he was doing.  He talked about his spirit being broken but he added: There’s something inside that keeps us going.

I’m not totally sure what I understand the human soul to be.  It is not a physical organ and, as far as I am aware, it is not something that psychologists have named as such.  What I notice is that there is this ‘something’ inside us as human beings.  And if you’re listening, and noticing, you start to see it and hear it: you start to become aware of a whole world that is going on at a different level – a deeper level.

I love words, and the word soul is one to look out for and savour.  If you are someone who reads the Bible look out for the word soul.  Consider how it is used; what it is meaning.  But you don’t have to open a sacred text to find soul: soul-mate; soul music; soul food.  When I hear the word soul I find it is good to ponder why it is being used – what is it getting at.  There is, of course, a dictionary definition but I’m not sure that really helps us feel what soul is about.  As we ponder its use I think we edge around it – gradually closing in on it; we add layers to its meaning and give it its intrinsic depth; and we feel it in our own souls.  Our souls echo back that understanding.

Yesterday I was cleaning, and I spotted a spiders web.  Not the pretty kind – the kind that hang around like an elongated piece of dust.  Once I’d removed it I spotted another, and another… I’d tuned into spider webs and suddenly I saw them everywhere!  I think we can do the same with soul.  Noticing it in one place will help us to observe it in other places.  And observing it ‘out there’ in other human beings will encourage our own soul: in some intangible way that eternal part of our self will know it is seen and cherished.  Which speaks of our connection, as human beings and creatures, at a soul level…

Is it something you feel?  I’d love to know!

 

PS Had to go and listen to this wonderful song by Labi Siffre:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7B-4Lsrx8IA

 

 

 

Sermon                 Genesis 1 and Psalm 24                       Theme: Global Stewardship

About this:

I prepared this sermon for the URC church in my village, for a service about Global Stewardship, in the pre-Covid world.  In thinking about which of the talks I have prepared to share first on ‘Words and Musings’ I was drawn to this because it is about how faith and our care for planet earth are intricately linked.  This is something that I feel and know at a gut level. 

The fear that a lot of us experience as we think about the future of our planet is very real.  I have tried to be honest about this.  I have also recently listened to a podcast that didn’t talk about living beyond the fear but about not being afraid of fear.  Our fear is there to teach us, and I think part of my current learning is to listen to my fear and learn from it.

The sermon has been edited so that, hopefully, it makes sense as you read it. There are links to the Bible passages in case you want to refer to them.

Please comment and share.

Links for the Readings:

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+1&version=MSG

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm+24&version=NIVUK

Our theme for today is global stewardship.  Stewardship is to do with our responsibility to look after what we have been given, and in thinking about global stewardship we are focusing on the fact that God gave us this planet on which we live, and he gave us the responsibility to look after it. 

We don’t have to look too far in the news to see that we have not done a good job of this.  Unfortunately, there are many problems that we are facing because of our lack of care for the planet. 

In our Genesis reading we find that at the end of that sixth day of creation:

³¹ God looked over everything he had made;
        it was so good, so very good!

These words remind me of the tales of Narnia when the children go back with Aslan and witness the beginning of the world.  We overuse some words, but witnessing creation surely was awesome.  Seeing the beauty that God created come into being.  And even though we weren’t there we can, and do, experience that same awe.  When we look at the immensity of God’s creation – the beauty of mountains, rivers, the ocean, the stars – and when we look at the detail of God’s creation – the markings on animals, the intricate structures of flowers, the shine of a conker.  God looked over everything he made, and it was so good, so very good.

That is where we started, and this is where we have come - to the world we live in today.  A world where fires are raging; animal and plant species are becoming extinct on an alarming scale; where pollution is everywhere – in the air, the water, the land; where people suffer from the ravages of war, from natural disasters, from poverty, from the effects of climate change.  It is not good, it is not very good at all.

The story of creation in Genesis is familiar and it clearly states that God gave us responsibility for his creation.  When God created human beings, he said (in the Message version of the Bible):

“Prosper! Reproduce! Fill Earth! Take charge!
    Be responsible for fish in the sea and birds in the air,
        for every living thing that moves on the face of Earth.”

God gave humanity the responsibility to look after the creatures that he had created.  And Genesis chapter 2:15 builds on this when it says that God put man in the Garden of Eden to ‘work it and take care of it’.  God put his creation in our hands – we were put in charge.

We should remember at this point that being put in charge is not the same thing as owning.  We have a responsibility here. God didn’t give us this amazing planet and say – it’s yours, do what you like with it.  God put us in charge to look after the planet.  Psalm 24 begins:

The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it,

The world, and all who live in it.

The earth is not ours: it does not belong to us.  The earth is the Lord’s and we are stewards of this amazing place.  And unfortunately we have made a right mess of it.

It does make you think – why on earth did God put us in charge? Out of all the creatures why did he choose us?

To find the answer to this we need to go back to our Genesis passage.  When God decided to create mankind he said:

“Let us make human beings in our image, make them
        reflecting our nature
    So they can be responsible for the fish in the sea,
        the birds in the air, the cattle,
    And, yes, Earth itself,
        and every animal that moves on the face of Earth.”

The reason God put us in charge is because he made us in his image and to reflect his nature.  That is how he made us: that is how we are made.  And that doesn’t just go for those of us sat here this morning, it doesn’t just go for those who call themselves Christians, that goes for every human being on the planet; those alive today and those who have lived.  Each one made in the image of God with the ability to reflect his nature.

As people of faith - people who recognise a creator God: recognise him in his creation from the smallest creature to the magnificence of the highest mountain - as people of faith we have work to do here.

We have individual spiritual work to do.  Because God has made you and me in his image: we have a piece of God inside us and we have the potential to reflect his very nature.  And do we do that?  Do people know you are a Christian by your love?  The honest truth is that we fall short.  Love is not something that you can manufacture; it is not something that you can pretend to have.  We need to do that deep spiritual work so that we can reflect God’s love which will never come back empty.

I am struck by how Psalm 24 develops, going from:

“The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it, the world and all who live in it”

To:

“Who may ascend the hill of the Lord? Who may stand in his holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart…”

The earth is the Lord’s and if we are to fulfil our responsibility to care for it we need to work on our spiritual lives.  We need to seek God’s face.  We need to come to him with clean hands and a pure heart, so that we can reflect his love.

But please don’t stop there, and please don’t think that your first responsibility is your spiritual health and until you have that sorted out you can’t tackle the other problems that we face.  Because, ironically, in order to come to God with clean hands we may have to get our hands very dirty.

Life is very complicated, everything is tied together, and as much as we want to be able to separate things out and deal with them one by one, that is just not the way things are.

Our spiritual life and our spiritual health are tied up with our everyday life.  And our everyday life is tied up with the everyday lives of every single creature on this planet, every human being, and the future of the planet itself.

So as I work on my spiritual health I also need to actively engage with my God-given responsibility to care for this planet and all who live on it.  As my relationship with God deepens my care for the planet will grow, as my care for the planet grows my relationship with God will deepen.  The two things are intricately tied together.

The responsibility we have is overwhelming, especially in the light of the current state of our planet.  I think that’s the reason why many of us shy away from thinking about it too much, from taking on what it really means, from making the changes that we need to make.  But as people of faith we need to grapple with these issues if we are serious about wanting to reflect God’s love.

I don’t know how much you know and understand about the climate emergency that we face – I don’t want to assume knowledge or lack of knowledge, so let me talk briefly from a personal perspective.

The future that we face on our planet earth scares me.  I do my best to not live in that fear, but it does scare me.  And when I listen to the news – which to be honest I do less and less – it makes my heart break to hear of the destruction, pollution, extinction of the natural world, and to hear of desperate lives – people in slavery, in poverty, in conflict.  It is bleak.

And yet I know deeper within me that God is love, and God lives in me.  And perfect love drives out all fear.  My deep desire is to live beyond the fear, to live in God’s love and to act in order to bring that love into the world.

I’m not in that place so I am working on myself spiritually – I know I need that work – to understand myself better and to nurture the kingdom of God which is inside me.

And I am doing my best to not turn my back on the news and to take action where and when I can, be it: joining a demonstration; changing my shopping habits; having a difficult conversation; writing to my MP.  I am aware that we need to be acting locally and on a global level.  I am aware that there are things I can do as an individual and times I need to join with bigger groups of people.

I cannot believe that God – who is love – likes what is going on in our world.  I cannot believe that God would wish us to carry on regardless, whilst other humans suffer, whilst the planet burns and creation groans.  I believe that God calls us to reflect his nature, to reflect love and to act to manifest his love.

This is a hard message but please don’t ignore it.  Please don’t think it’s all too much and it’s all too frightening.  Because God loves you, God is at work in you and he wants you to take this seriously.  Because in doing so you will not just be making an impact on the world around you, you will be making an impact on your own spiritual health.

We are made in the image and likeness of God – let’s do the honest spiritual work to nurture that likeness.  We are given responsibility for this planet and the whole of creation – let’s take our responsibility seriously.

The end of Psalm 24 says:

Lift up your heads, O you gates; Lift them up you ancient doors, that the King of Glory may come in.  Who is he, this king of glory?  The Lord almighty – he is the king of glory.

Lift up your heads, open your ancient doors – let the king of glory in.  Reflect his love.  Take on the responsibility he has given you.

The spiritual work that needs to happen in you, you need to do.  Please don’t forget that challenge – don’t put it to one side – it is so important.

But hopefully you’ve seen that that work is tied up with the way we live day by day, in a way that takes responsibility for our planet.  That can be overwhelming, but can also start with small steps: is there a small step you can take today?