Eternal Echoes

Are we awake? Sermon blogging; 1 Samuel 3: 1-10 & John 1: 43-51

Have you ever had an epiphany, a sudden moment a break through where you suddenly but surely understand or see something? It might have been a maths problem at school, a sudden moment when the jumble of numbers that had been giving you so much trouble, causing such a headache suddenly made sense! If that has happened to you I’d love you to explain it to me, or maybe I wouldn’t because I’m still not sure I’d get it!

It might have been something quite different, a sudden knowledge, a breakthrough in understanding of someone else’s situation, a thought that floats into your mind with the answer to something that has been troubling you, a realisation that the thing that has been worrying you for so long is something you need not worry about at all!

That happened in different ways to both Nathanael and to Eli in the Scriptures that we have just heard, yes I did say Eli and not Samuel, because it was Eli who suddenly realised that it was God who was speaking to the boy!

I am going to concentrate on that account first, so what was happening, we are told that the word of the Lord was not heard much/ was rare in those days, that Eli’s family though of a priestly line were rebellious and all doing what pleased them, the old man had all but given up, although he carried on his duties, living and working in the temple he did not expect God to speak or intervene…

I wonder if that speaks into the condition of the church in our day?

Do we expect to hear God, to see God, do we believe that God is interested in us, that God might empower or equip us? Do we hear his voice or see what he is doing among us?

Let’s go back to the story;

The boy Samuel was brought to the temple to serve under Eli, to learn the ways of God, he himself was an answer to prayer, his mother distraught and thinking she was barren went to the temple and prayed, the old priest was altered to her plight and while first thinking she was drunk took time to hear her story…

Are we alert to the needs and stories of those who come among us? Could the answer to their prayers be the answer to our prayers?

Hannah, Samuel’s mother promises to bring the child back to the temple to learn to serve, and once he is weaned he is delivered to Eli’s care. Back to our story then; it is night and the boy and the priest have retired to their beds, then Samuel hears a voice, thinking it is Eli he runs to him, twice the old man sends him back to bed, only on the third time does the realisation that it is God himself that is speaking to the boy dawn on him!

Samuel is instructed to respond to the Lord and the story continues…

I wonder, are we alert to the calling of the Lord in the voices and actions of others?

I have a friend who is passionate about the plight of the Palestinian people, she posts videos and prayers, news articles and photo’s to Facebook, I know she speaks and prays and writes about their plight on a regular basis, every now and then God calls me to prayer through her passion and opens my eyes to pray! I become alert to the passion of God because she is alert to the passion of God.

Other friends have other passions, for me at the moment the situation of the Saudi blogger Rafi, as someone who also blogs I am in many ways horrified that such punishment can be inflicted on somebody for simply writing!

A collective passion in this Church and Circuit is the Comfort Zone, where day by day, week by week we meet with people who have real and desperate stories to tell, and we see people whose lives and situations are being changed, are we alert to the way that God is working and moving among us?

Are we awake enough to hear God speaking to us?

On to Nathanael; “come and see” is the invitation brought to him by an excited Philip, come and see Jesus, Jesus of Nazareth, in him we have found the one who the prophets spoke of!

A bold claim, but of course Philip has seen Jesus and is convinced, utterly and completely convinced of the one he has seen! Somehow his encounter with Jesus has changed Philip entirely. Nathanael is not so ready to be convinced, after all how can anything good come out of Nazareth… sounds a bit like a news report about Blackpool, there are days aren’t there where it seems that the only news is bad news!

Nathanael is about to have his mind changed, because Jesus has seen him first! Just pause and think about that for a moment; Jesus has seen him first, he is seen and known and this is revealed to him, and it is not his scepticism that is pointed out to him but his devotion!

When you were knit together in your mothers’ womb, and even before you were made God had a plan for you, he formed you in love and chooses to see the good in you, that is what is revealed to Nathanael, Jesus saw right through the bluff and bluster “ how can anything good come out of Nazareth?” and right to the heart of the man and shows him himself; here you are Nathanael, a true Israelite, there is nothing false in you! It is as if Jesus held a mirror up to Nathanael and showed him the very core of his being, the image of God, and in seeing himself suddenly and surely Nathanael saw Jesus!

Through this passage the Holy Spirit holds a mirror up for us and beckons us to gaze into it; and whispers to us “ here you are fearfully and wonderfully made and I love you! “

“Here you are fearfully and wonderfully made and I love you!”

Like Philip, Nathanael is awakened to the presence and power of God among them in the person of Jesus, like Philip he chooses to follow and becomes a disciple ( a learner), this is how the message and the truth of the Gospel; God is with us, has been passed on through the ages, from person to person, group to group, as one awakens and invites another to come, come and see…

The question for us is have we seen? Have you seen? Do we/ you still see?

Has the word of the Lord become rare in our days as it was in the days of Eli?

How is God speaking to us and through whom?

It is easy to be negative and sceptical , and yet we have story after story coming to us of the way God IS working, when we share we share answers to prayer, we are seeing lives changed, hopefully our lives are being changed…

Let’s dare then to be awake to hear God in and through the Scriptures, in and through our prayers and in and through one another, to remember his promise through Jesus that he is with us, to remember the gift of the Spirit given who will remind us of things long forgotten.

Towards the end of his earthly ministry Jesus told his disciples that they would do greater things than he had… that is his promise to us his church as we dare to see, to follow and to respond in love and service together, perhaps our first task then is to wake up, to become ready to serve and to look for God as s/he works among us!

Picture mine

 

It's not fair, and other stinky attitudes- pondering the radical grace of God ( Sermon blogging Matthew 20: 1-16)

That isn't fair...

He has a larger piece of pie than me....

She was given more presents than me...

They earn more, they have more fun, he has more friends...

I want what they have, I want more, deserve more, need more....

How many times have we heard complaints like that, I can certainly remember making sure that everyone received the same amount of cake, or at least as far as I could make it, budgets were set for birthdays and Christmas and gifts given accordingly, in fact they still are. There is something intrinsically right in fairness, I suspect that, that is why we have a tendency, if we are honest to feel for those who had worked all day in the vineyard, surely they deserved a greater reward, surely the vineyard owner wasn't being fair...

But just stop and ask yourself the question what is fair...

The vineyard owner in Jesus parable had gone out to hire workers at the beginning of the day, those who were gathered were hired, and were happy at that point with the days pay that was being offered to them. They hadn't questioned it, it was a fair days wage, what they would have expected, and what they needed to feed themselves and their families. In short IT WAS FAIR!

It was fair, it only became unfair when expectations were raised as the last workers were also paid a days wage for an hours work, suddenly hopes were raised, greed made an entry, then hopes were dashed and greed turned to envy. It is not fair!

Put yourself in the workers shoes; watching the later workers receive their pay and suddenly the world centres on you, you had been happy with a days pay, but when you saw that they were given a days pay, you knew you deserved more!

The workers grumble, and the vineyard owner in Jesus parable is confronted; just listen to his response; "Are you envious because I am generous?"

What craziness is this? How could those lazy workers be worth a days pay? 

This says Jesus is the great reversal, many of the first shall be last, and the last first...

We listen to what we've been taught so many times, and the penny drops, the way to earn our salvation, our rightful place in the kingdom of heaven is of course to give ourselves away, to put everyone else first, to work hard and to do so much good that in the end we will have a great pile of richess in heaven to enjoy for all eternity....

It will all be fair in the end....

Clunk, the penny bounces as we turn the great reversal back on it's head, and once more we've made the whole story about how much we can get and somehow we've missed the point again.

Let's turn our gaze then from the workers to the vineyard owner...

At the beginning of the day he gathered a group of workers, surely being a good and sensible landowner he would have hired enough men to work his land for the day, and when he gathered them they were content. Yet something drove him back again and again to the town square where those waiting for work waited hopefully, each time he gathered more workers together, bringing them to join the workers in his field.  

He didn't go back just once either, he went back again and again, 4 times in all, each time drawing more in, and at the end of the day all were given a fair days wage. 

All were given a fair days wage, all were treated equally no matter how long they had laboured, in the economy of the vineyard owner all were worth the same...

Here then is the challenge in an unfair world...

Let me take you to another teaching of Jesus; we find him surrounded by  Pharisees and Sadducees asking question after question, what is right what is wrong?... who is in, who is out? At last they come to the question about the greatest commandment, and Jesus response is this:

"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’  This is the greatest and first commandment.  And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’  On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

Who then is my neighbour? Do I really question what they are worth?

Let me tell you a modern day true story; Lynn, our Comfort Zone Chaplain was asked a couple of weeks ago what we needed in the way of ladies clothing to give out; among the items on her list was ladies underwear.

A few days later she received a phone call, the group had thought about her requests but were uncomfortable with the thought of giving out secondhand underwear. Lynn suggested this was not her intent when asking, the response from this very well heeled group was astonishing...

"Oh we won't be buying new!"

In short, they are not worth it!

They are not worth it, we might be worthy of new underwear, yet whilst it does not seem right to give second hand, "we won't be buying new"...

Now listen again to the vineyard owner;

"Are you envious because I sm generous?" Are you angry because in my economy everyone deserves a fair days wage, all need to eat, and all are treated equally? Are you angry because I value these last ones as highly as I value you?

Do you love yourself so little that you are unable to love and rejoice with your neighbour that you all have enough? Do you understand so little of the love that gives of itself to you that you want to grumble about fairness?

In a world that is unjust, the radical grace and fairness of God seems crazy, in a world where we are too often valued by what we have and not for who we are the apparent unfairness of the vineyard owner in Jesus parable is challenging, and even upsetting...

Yet if we could catch hold of the heart of radical grace that goes back and back, drawing in the workers, back even at the end of the day to bring in those waiting hopefully for the meagre wage of an hours work that would be better than nothing, and dare we say it, even to those who might have sauntered into the square at the last hour just in case there was some work to be had...

... and all are counted worthy, and all are given enough, a fair days wage...

For all are gathered in and loved and celebrated... this is grace, and fairness pales in comparrison!

So the question is will we choose to be like the vineyard owner who chooses to value all and to give freely, will we choose to follow Christ who gave himself away pouring out his life on the cross, and his life into our lives when we dare to receive the Spirit who calls us into radical grace, who calls us to see through the eyes of God who knows and loves us? Will we dare to give ourselves away, to store our treasure in heaven not for ourselves, but because that is where true treasure, treasure of the heart, is stored?

Or will we choose to turn in on ourselves, and be wrapped up in ourselves, our wants, our desires? As my wise 104 year old friend points out; those wrapped up in themselves make small parcels...

The choice is ours, will we participate in the generosity and grace of God....

In the words of St Francis; " it is in giving that we receive, and in dying that we're born to eternal life..."

Image Hidden;  (In Christ) mine

 

The way of love, into suffering ( Sermon blogging Matthew 16: 21-28)

Have you noticed how so many good TV series leave you with a cliff-hanger ending to the episode, not the ones where it is obvious what will happen but those who leave you with a sense of anticipation because you really aren't sure what will happen next. Those where the unfurling story takes strange twists and turns and perhaps even when the beginning only makes sense right at the end, and even then there are questions. I am sure you can think of examples! 

Just pause for a moment and watch this story unfold, our story is coming to a crunch point and I want to take you back to last week's episode, to the cliff hanger ending of the Gospel reading, the ending that should have left you asking for more, and possibly left you with one big question; "Why not?"

Just in case you missed it Jesus has been quizzing his disciples, " who do people say I am?", and finally;

¹⁵He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” ¹⁶Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” ¹⁷And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven. ¹⁸And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. ¹⁹I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” ²⁰Then he sternly ordered the disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.

Wow, put yourself in Peter's shoes, he has got it right, this revelation is not from himself and his deductive thinking, but God himself has revealed to Peter the truth of who Jesus is, great things are about to happen....

Then Jesus sternly warned the disciples not to tell anyone... queue the music, credits roll; what Jesus? Why not Jesus? Surely this is good news, really good news, the long awaited Messiah, the Saviour of Israel, the one we've been waiting for has come and we are to say nothing, nothing at all?

So how about this weeks story, here are Peter and the others with the keys to the kingdom of heaven in their hearts and minds standing on the threshold of something new and wonderful, and Jesus begins to speak to them about suffering, the suffering and death that he has to undergo! Confusion reigns, this cannot be, why on earth would the Messiah have to suffer...

Once again Peter steps in as spokesman and is rounded upon by Jesus, "Get behind me Satan"!

What is going on? Lets pause for a moment and unpack that sentence on which this passage hinges, the meaning of the term of name Satan is actually opponent, so what is Jesus saying to and of Peter? Has Peter just become the devil incarnate, or is there something more subtle and more dangerous going on? Could it be that Peter's view of who the Messiah is and what he has come for is in direct opposition to God's ways?

Just think for a while on God's ways as revealed in Jesus...

How he left the glory of heaven and slipped into frail, vulnerable human flesh, born in obscurity and poverty...

How even as a babe he became a refugee, fleeing the slaughter of the innocents...

How he grew and learned a trade, grew and grew in understanding of God's ways, and then when the time was right submitted himself to baptism, struggled against the opponent within him in the desert and emerged to bring the good news of God's coming kingdom not into Temple in Jerusalem, the heart and seat of power of those who called themselves God's chosen people  but to the outcast, the lepper, the tax collector, the foreigner, the adulterer and the prostitute, to all who were pushed to the margins and rejected by society Jesus came, healing, accepting, teaching and releasing. Living out the message that all are welcome and none are excluded! 

Now he speaks of entering into necessary suffering, and while Peter does not understand it this too is good news, for he calls us to follow him! 

This is good news, for he calls us to follow him, to follow him against the will of our internal voices that call out for ease and comfort and a decent standard of living. Listen again to Jesus:

 If you want to follow Me, you must deny yourself the things you think you want. You must pick up your cross and follow Me.  The person who wants to save his life must lose it, and she who loses her life for Me will find it. Look, does it make sense to truly become successful, but then to hand over your very soul? What is your soul really worth?

Your soul of course is infinetly valuable, it tells you who you are body, mind and spirit in Christ, when we follow the way of Jesus we become hidden with Christ in God and our world expands beyond our limited wishes and desires. 

To leave ourselves behind means becoming more, it means having our hearts open to the other, to the outcasts, to the vulnerable, to any that we might formerly have called "other"!

Jesus is going to walk the road to Jerusalem and he will not be opposed, and he calls us to follow him, to break away the barriers, and tear down the walls in our minds that keep us sanitised and safe from the world. In a world where there is so much turmoil and pain this is good news, to the people of Gaza and Israel, of Syria and Iraq this is good news for in the eyes of Christ they are not other but infinetly precious and included. To the confused and traumatised people of Rotherham this is good news, for he sees their hurts, and in his woundedness brings healing through his body here on earth if we too dare to bear his wounds and cry out for justice. To the poor and marginalised in our town this is good news if we like him choose to satnd with them and open our eyes to the truth that we are one!

The Church is not called to maintain lovely buildings and hold Committee meetings ( though that often consumes our time), rather it is called as the people of God, the body of Christ to enter into his suffering, to take on his vulnerable flesh and to bear his wounds, to move beyond the barriers and boundaries of respectability and to put on Christ in love...

The choice is ours, are we those who will dare to follow, or do we prefer our own kingdom, our place of saftey, our will and ways? If that is our choice we might perhaps here Jesus challenge to us as Peter did, do not oppose me... "Get behind me Satan!" I hope we will choose the better path, the more daring and inclusive path, that we will choose to walk the way of the cross, to become those who in Christ turn the world upside down until it and we find ourselves the right way up at last! What a series ending that would be!!!

Out of the darkness light; Image mine

Be still; Sermon blogging (Mark 4 35-41)

Swamped, pressed in, overwhelmed, in danger of being crushed, terrified, exhausted, threatened… What a list of words, in one short passage, describing not only the state of the disciples, but the state of Jesus himself. All day he has been teaching about the kingdom of God, much of that from the boat because the crowds who were so needy pressed in so hard upon him that he was in danger of being crushed…..

Swamped, pressed in, overwhelmed, in danger of being crushed, terrified, exhausted, threatened…

I wonder if that list of words has ever applied to your life circumstances, if a situation or a series of situations has left you feeling powerless and out of control, almost as if you are in a boat on a stormy sea pitched and tossed about by circumstance after circumstance…

I wonder if life sometimes feels quite simply like a test of endurance, you’ve got to stick your head down and get through it, and quite often you do, minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day…

Of course there are times, and we all have them when life is absolutely the opposite, the days seem calm and almost idyllic, the waves on the sea of life are gentle, the breeze is cooling and pleasant, providing us with good memories to hang onto, memories that bring hope when the sea is rough….

But when the sea is rough it is not always easy to remember….

Come with me to the Sea of Galilee, and hear Jesus teach, the parable of the sower, where we find ourselves longing to be the good soil so that the word of God can take root in our lives, drawing from us depths and richness that produce a bountiful harvest….

Then more; stories that challenge, disarm, and undo us….

"Does anyone bring a lamp home and put it under a basin or beneath the bed? Don't you put it up on a table or on the mantel? We're not keeping secrets, we're telling them; we're not hiding things, we're bringing them out into the open.”

Do we really want the things in our lives brought out in the open?

 ²³"Are you listening to this? he asks us; Really listening?

 ^24-25"Listen carefully to what I am saying—and be wary of the shrewd advice that tells you how to get ahead in the world on your own. Giving, not getting is the way. Generosity begets generosity. Stinginess impoverishes."

Be generous with your life….

 

But Lord I am hard pressed!

 

Be wary of shrewd seeming advice……

 

But Lord how will I survive?

 

There are times when the questions simply pile in:

 

How will I survive, how can I survive on this stormy sea where the wind and waves are so overwhelming?

How can I survive when life’s circumstances have so depleted my resources that I have nothing left to give, no strength, nothing?

 

“How can I describe the Kingdom of God?  says Jesus, What story should I use to illustrate it? ³¹ It is like a mustard seed planted in the ground. It is the smallest of all seeds, ³² but it becomes the largest of all garden plants; it grows long branches, and birds can make nests in its shade.”

As the waves threaten and the wind howls, as memories of calmer times slip by too quickly for you to grasp them search the depths of your heart for that mustard seed of faith, hear his words to you from another time;

 

This is my command: Love one another the way I loved you. This is the very best way to love. Put your life on the line for your friends. You are my friends when you do the things I command you. I'm no longer calling you servants because servants don't understand what their master is thinking and planning. No, I've named you friends because I've let you in on everything I've heard from the Father. (John 15)

 

You are my friends, my friends, I’ve let you in on everything, dig deep, remember...

 

The storm is raging, but there is hope, he is here with you in life’s boat and though it might take every ounce of your strength to call out to him you know you have to do it. Leaving the crowd behind and following Jesus does not guarantee us, as individuals or as a church, a storm-free life, and we, like the disciples, may sometimes find ourselves crying out, "Wake up!  Do you not care?" Even when we make it through the storms, following Jesus may well take us straight into encounters with the worst pain and suffering of the world, the places where Jesus' powerful touch is most needed.

Even when we make it through the storms, following Jesus may well take us straight into encounters with ourselves that unnerve and unsettle us so much that our certainties are overwhelmed and we find ourselves overcome….

Of course we know the end of this story; Jesus wakes and rebukes the wind and the waves, with words of power and peace…

Be still!

Wherever life’s circumstances find you today those are his words for you, in the good times be still, draw strength and sustenance from him, let the roots of your faith plunge deep into the rich soil of faith, receive the warming sun and the life giving rain with joy and gladness, and do not forget who brings them to you. Be still and know, be still and worship, be still and soak in his presence and his love….

Wherever life’s circumstances find you today those are his words for you, when the storm rages be still, search your heart for the faith that clings to the one in whom there is life, and life in all it’s fullness, cry out to him from the depths of your anguish and turmoil, and receive his word. Be still….

Marks Gospel contains many accounts of crossings of the Sea of Galilee, and while the sea represents, chaos and the unknown, the crossings in the presence of Jesus opened the door to a new way of being for the disciples as it does for us. With him their horizons were stretched and boundaries were crossed and recrossed. With him even the most difficult circumstances held hope because he was present to hold, sustain and guide. He calls us too to follow, to allow him to lead us, to know his presence even in the storm. 

He speaks to our souls, be still , he says, for I am with you, be still, I will never forsake you, be still and trust in me….

Be still, you will survive and even thrive in him, for he will never let you go.

 

 

God comes calling (Sermon blogging Genesis 3: 8-15 & Mark 3: 20-35)

Have you ever been utterly surprised by something you thought you knew well? A familiar view caught suddenly in new light revealing fresh vistas?  A phrase in a well known story that suddenly leaps out and hits setting off sparks in your imagination? A song you’ve heard a thousand times, and yet somehow you’ve never heard the underlying melody until today?

 

Have you ever thought to yourself, wow, this is the first time I’ve ever, seen/hear/thought that, and yet I am looking at/ hearing/reading something so familiar….

 

I want to challenge you to try to do that today, to open your ears and lend your imaginations afresh to the Genesis story, to come with me to the garden, to watch the scene unfolding…

 

Eve and Adam are hiding, they are feeling vulnerable and scared, they have eaten from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and they have been forever changed, their joyful innocence has gone, they are aware of their own nakedness, their frailty is evident to them….

 

And God calls; where are you? Of course God knows where they are, but the question reveals a deep longing in God for his creation for something has now gone wrong, something has been lost….

 

Now I’m not talking about sin here, for you must note that the passage itself says nothing about sin or the fall, both of those are layers we have added to this account through the years, and it is now difficult to hear the story without hearing them…

 

But Eve and Adam are lost, they have lost their confidence, they have lost their open and childlike relationship with God, they are like street children thrust into adult lives too early, confused and hurting they have attempted to clothe themselves with fig leaves…

 

Dressed in this inadequate clothing they respond to God, and the blame game begins….

 

She gave it to me…

 

The serpent tricked me….

 

So what’s going on here? I wonder as I read the passages in Genesis if Gods plan might at some point have been to share the knowledge of good and evil with them, when the time was right, when they had grown in their relationship with him, when they were ready for such a burden….

 

For God’s plan is surely that we walk with him, in relationship with him, to grow in the knowledge and love of him. No loving parent would want to keep their children as babies, we want them to grow and to learn, to develop and to mature, and good parents allow their children to stretch the boundaries and explore new things one step at a time….

 

But the fruit has been eaten, their eyes have been open and Eve and Adam are lost, lost to themselves and to God in confusion, pain and shame….

 

And I wonder how often that is our experience, I wonder how much of our spiritual and religious life is so much an exercise in sewing fig leaves together in a vain attempt to clothe ourselves and to be presentable. How often do we hide from God and from ourselves trying to be something we are not?  The truth is we are unable to cover our vulnerability and brokenness…

 

But God comes calling…..

 

Let’s leap in our imaginations now to the house where Jesus is, crowds of people have flocked to hear him, they can’t get enough of him, his teaching is new and open and radical, the God revealing ways that he opens the Scriptures and teaches have stirred in them a deep longing, an echo of Eden, a desire for healing, wholeness, and restoration, and they press in for more….

 

God is calling…. they are responding…

 

But not everyone is pleased, Jesus is drawing attention to himself and his family are confused, he is not holding to the social norms of the day, he is behaving strangely, he receives everyone, even tax collectors and prostitutes, lepers and adulterers, and they are embarrassed….

 

Jesus is teaching, and touching and healing, and the Pharisees, totally perplexed buy the God revealing acts they are seeing mistake the glorious work of the Holy Spirit as the work of Satan, and they declare he has a demon….

 

But Jesus makes clear, in the form of a parable, the scope of what he is doing in his freeing of the demon-possessed.  Jesus is coming to plunder Satan's household and bring about his end, not by division from within but by stealth and force from without.   Jesus' stealthy binding of the powers of evil ultimately undermines Satan so completely that even when he appears to have succeeded in destroying Jesus in the crucifixion, the very destruction of the Son issues not in defeat but in the mysterious victory of God.

 

Jesus will not be stopped, not by his family and not by the Pharisees, and he calls to the crowd to do the will of God, to become members of the new kingdom family….

 

God has come calling….

 

And hearing something fresh and new in his call the crowd respond, throwing aside their religious fig leaves they come as if naked and vulnerable before God who in Christ has shown himself in a new way, full of forgiveness and mercy, full of grace and truth, truth that sets them free from the rules that have bound them….

 

God is calling, calling to us today, for we are as vulnerable and broken as Eve and Adam, as frail and needy as the thronging crowd, and just as God did not leave Adam and Eve in their inadequate clothing but provided animal skins for them so he comes to us in Christ and offers us himself….

 

An animal was sacrificed to cover Adam and Eve; Jesus gave of himself to cover us, and he comes calling, calling us to clothe ourselves with the garments he supplies us with; compassion, kindness, humility, quiet strength, discipline. Calling us to be quick to forgive an offense, to forgive as quickly and completely as he has forgiven us. And most of all he calls us to receive his garment of love, a garment so rich that it covers our brokenness when we receive it in humility and vulnerability….

 

The proud and the arrogant, the self righteous and the self sufficient ones cannot wear these clothes, they are given to those who know their frailty and weakness, the vulnerability and nakedness, for the clothes he gives us are the clothes of grace.

 

If we put on grace God comes calling through us, calling to the broken and the vulnerable, working in us so that we see our neighbour in need and offer to share the grace we have received with them, calling us beyond ourselves to touch the world in prayer, to bring out the God colours and God flavours in it, to shine a light into the dark places, to speak love and to reach out, to draw a crowd….

 

God is calling, calling us today to cast of our religious fig leaves and to become bearers of love and grace, to paint his picture, tell his story and sing his song…

 

And we need not be afraid for God knows us as we are and will cover us with all that we need, he will waken us to the Spirit within, and the miracle is that somehow our weakness becomes his strength, for he has chosen to place his treasure into the cracked clay pots of our lives and to make us beautiful….

 

God is calling….

 

How will you respond?

 

Crying out for justice (sermon for Women's World Day of Prayer- Luke 18: 1-8 and Habakkuk from Ch 1&3)

Malaysia is a beautiful country, comprising of the mainland peninsular, Malaysian Borneo and a number of smaller and islands. It ranges from cooler mountains to tropical beaches, vast and advanced cities to smaller villages almost untouched by the years.

 

I am not reading to you from a tourist brochure, I was born in Singapore and brought up in Kuala Lumper; I was woken every morning by the sound of the Imam calling the faithful to prayer. I was aware through the people my father worked with that prayer was a vitally important part of the nations identity- obedience to Allah was the Malaysians duty.

 

Malaysia is also a cosmopolitan country, I attended the Garden School, an international school, and one of my class mates was the Sultans daughter! People of all races and faith mixed there but faith was never mentioned. And I honestly cannot remember seeing a church, though there must have been some. Today Malaysia celebrates its cosmopolitan nature, it is advance technologically and is on the surface a wealthy, successful, forward thinking country.

 

It is only since becoming a Christian as an adult that I became aware of the oppression and injustice and violence that we have just heard about through the voices of the women of Malaysia.

 

Oppression of faith- it is illegal to convert from Islam to Christianity.

 

It is illegal for Christians to proselytise, even talking about faith can be dangerous, and if misinterpreted and misrepresented could result in a fine or prison sentence.

 

Women are not treated as equals and; a few years ago a former Prime ministers daughter spoke out: She described Muslim women as second-class citizens who were held back by discrimination.

 

Malaysia led by Mahathir Mohamod was in the forefront of the international campaign to end white minority rule in South Africa.

But his daughter Marina has described Muslim women in Malaysia as subject to a form of apartheid - second-class citizens held back by discriminatory rules.

While she was speaking for Muslim women (who we must recognise are the majority) discrimination and abuse affect all women, violence and rape against women are treated lightly as offences- the judgement that they must have done something to deserve such treatment is evidence of systemic corruption.

The customary Malaysian greeting;  Selamat Datang – peace and welcome – is likely to turn sour in the moth of the speaker or the ears of the hearer when the ideal of peace and harmony is so undermined by corruption and greed, and sadly distorted when voices for truth and justice are silenced.

Their questions from this service should echo in our ears:

Do we take the risk and engage, or do we remain silent? Should we stay neutral?

They answer their own question:

We have come to understand that God calls us to be righteous citizens of our country. So we do have a role to play by speaking out against all forms of injustice’.  (rpt)

We have a role to play- these are brave words and they should challenge us! For they see their role not simply as needing to speak out once, but continually, raising their voices not only in protest but also in prayer.

Theirs is an ongoing call to cry out to the authorities in Malaysia, to the world (through events like this) and to God in intercession and complaint! The readings they have given us are full of faith and endurance and longing. They also contain a promise, and an assurance that God is not deaf to their plight, and that s/he will act!

Listen again to the words from Habakkuk 3: (The Message)

O God, I've heard what our ancestors say about you, 
   and I'm stopped in my tracks, down on my knees.
Do among us what you did among them. 
   Work among us as you worked among them.
And as you bring judgment, as you surely must, 
   remember mercy. (2)

Though the fig tree does not bud 
   and there are no grapes on the vines, 
though the olive crop fails 
   and the fields produce no food, 
though there are no sheep in the pen 
   and no cattle in the stalls, 
yet I will rejoice in the LORD, 
   I will be joyful in God my Saviour.

The Sovereign LORD is my strength; 
   he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, 
   he enables me to tread on the heights. (17-19)

I will persist, the prayer of Habakkuk echoes in the prayers of the women of Malaysia, it echoes in their prayers, and as it does so it should challenge us! Will we speak out against injustice, will we speak out for them, pray for them; will we speak out about injustices that surround us, bankers being given huge bonuses whilst jobs in the public sector are being cut! Will we speak out for our youth when so many are loosing hope of ever being employed, will we speak out against potty decisions- such as broke councils spending £30,000 pounds on Commerative Jubilee mugs for Primary School Children, people in need being denied disability living allowance, abuse of our land, pollution and for the rights of the unborn, and that is just scratching the surface…

Will we speak out? Is it worth speaking out? The women of Malaysia say that it is. They offer us the story of the persistent widow as an example, encouraging us to bring our petitions before God- because God is not like the unjust judge who finally dragged himself out of bed just to rid himself of the widow. God is just and holy, and knows when the time is right:

Do you hear what that judge, corrupt as he is, is saying? So what makes you think God won't step in and work justice for his chosen people, who continue to cry out for help? Won't he stick up for them? I assure you, he will. He will not drag his feet. 

He will not drag his feet; he knows what we need….

But then the challenge, the challenge shown to us through the persistence of the widow, whose cries were heard, whose case for justice was vindicated;

How much of that kind of persistent faith will the Son of Man find on the earth when he returns?"

How persistent are we in our cry for justice, in our care and compassion for the poor and the outcast? Have we heard and understood God’s heartbeat, are we in time and in tune with it? Do we want to be? Believe me I too am challenged by these questions, but we ignore them at our peril:

I am sure you have heard it said that a society can be judged on the way it treats its most vulnerable members.

And remember though Habakkuk cried “How long O lord”

God’s response was this:

“Look at the nations and watch— 
   and be utterly amazed. 
For I am going to do something in your days 
   that you would not believe, 
   even if you were told. 

God’s ways are not our ways, her/his thoughts are not our thoughts, and yet through prayer and persistence we can learn his ways, we can begin to understand her/his heart, as we draw close, as we persist, as we speak out s/he promises us gifts of wisdom and strength. And this we can know, s/he is with us always!

 

Called to be salt and Light (Sermon blogging) Matthew 5: 13-16, Romans 12: 1-2

I’ve just returned from my holiday, and being super efficient I had planned my service before I left, the hymns and the scriptures were carefully chosen. I even had a the beginnings of a message forming but speaking about riots and rioters was far from my mind, a lot can change in two weeks.

What then shall I say? So much has already been said, news reporters, newspaper analysts, through the T.V., the radio, the papers, everyone has been asked their opinion, from comedians and magicians (The Guardian carried articles from Paul Daniels and Russell Brand) to politicians and community leaders.

Some blame the politicians, some blame the system, some blame the breakdown of society, and some blame the rioters calling them wild animals. Some blame greed and lack of community, some blame one another…

One thing becomes abundantly clear as you read reports and listen to the news; everybody is looking for somebody else to blame and very few want to take responsibility! But I suspect that deep down we know that the awkward truth is that we are all responsible at some level!

Yes I really did say that and I’ll repeat it just in case you think you misheard me: “we are all responsible at some level.” Now I know that most of us did not take to the streets, that we did not loot and pillage or set buildings alight, we didn’t and we wouldn’t…

…and yet we are responsible…

We are responsible for the generations who have grown up in this country without hope:

Though the newspapers are right in pointing out that single parent families, illiterate and impoverished youths were among the main perpetrators they were by no means alone, and the Daily Telegraph rightly states:

“Something has gone horribly wrong in Britain. If we are ever to confront the problems which have been exposed in the past week, it is essential to bear in mind that they do not only exist in inner-city housing estates.

The culture of greed and impunity we are witnessing on our TV screens stretches right up into corporate boardrooms and the Cabinet. It embraces the police and large parts of our media. It is not just its damaged youth, but Britain itself that needs a moral reformation.”

Britain itself needs a moral reformation! I’d go further; Britain does not just need reformation it needs deep transformation, for that we need to get away from selfishness that pervades every pore of our society and that I believe includes the church.

Listen to Jesus words again:

"Let me tell you why you are here. You're here to be salt-seasoning that brings out the God-flavours of this earth. If you lose your saltiness, how will people taste godliness?

Here's another way to put it: You're here to be light, bringing out the God-colours in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We're going public with this, as public as a city on a hill. If I make you light-bearers, you don't think I'm going to hide you under a bucket, do you? I'm putting you on a light stand. Now that I've put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand—shine! Keep open house; be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you'll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven.

Jesus was not speaking into a vacuum; he was speaking to his followers. His followers who loved among people who were suffering under political oppression, among people in an occupied land who were being heavily taxed people who were in some cases tired and worn down. People who needed hope….

Jesus was speaking to his followers and calling them to be those who brought hope, hope and flavour and colour to a world that needed salty light bearers!

Jesus is speaking to us too, calling us to be that salt seasoning, to bring light into the dark places; calling us to be aware of the needs of our communities.

We are going public with this message of hope says Jesus, as public as a city on a hill! I’m putting you on a light stand he says! I want you to shine…

This is a huge challenge to us, and it requires a big decision from us. It requires us to examine ourselves individually and corporately it requires us to understand and accept our part in the problem that faces us. It requires repentance from us, and a renewed, restored and even transformed desire to become bearers of hope…

It requires us to lay aside our wants and comforts in order to engage with the needs of others…

But before this all begins to sound like hard work and a call to a miserable way of being lets not forget that Jesus promises us his Spirit, promises us that to walk with him is to walk freely and lightly, to move in his unforced rhythms of grace! It also means that we don’t have to generate the love and compassion from within ourselves because they spring from the heart of the God who loved us first, and from whom all of the fruits of the Spirit flow…

Choosing to become a part of the solution requires action from us, listen to the words of Romans again:

^1-2 So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

 

God will bring out the best in us! God wants to bring out the best in us; God blesses us and calls us to become a blessing, a blessing to those who need his touch of love, his colours and his flavours running through their lives. He calls us beyond our comfort zones to touch the unlovely and unloved, to speak out against injustice at all levels, to be different and to make a difference!

And yes it will be risky and costly, but we are followers of the God who gave all for us, leaving the glory of heaven for us, who went to the cross for us, and then conquering sin and death he was raised to newness of life by the mighty resurrection power of the Holy Spirit working in and through him. It is that restoring, renewing and transforming power that he calls us to move into again, to receive from him, to live and move and have our being in him…

He was not concerned with our religion or tradition; he is not so much interested in how we sing our hymns or say our prayers as he is with our attitudes and actions towards the folk he has placed us amongst. His words to us are the same as they were to his early followers:

 "Let me tell you why you are here. You're here to be salt-seasoning that brings out the God-flavours of this earth. You're here to be light, bringing out the God-colours in the world.”

And he asks the same question of us:

Will you follow me?

 

 

 

 

Bread breakers- Sermon blogging: John 6 1-21

Let's travel from the Galilean hillside to the desperate situation of a refugee camp, from a place where bread is plentiful, to a place where it is scarce. From a place of hope to a place of despair, from a place of wonder, to a place where hope is almost gone; theologian William Loader describes the scene for us through poetry:

 

 

Dust on her muddy feet,
still smeared from the wet and now blue with cold,
hands stretched out in a meaningless pose of begging;
for UN relief supplies reach the camp only late in the afternoon.
Drawn faced children with bulging bellies,
listless, some sleeping, many dying.
Time.. time to live and time to die.
Time to think - if only, but too tired, too undernourished,
time but no strength to be profound, to reflect, to meditate;
makes the dying easier, the pain less revolutionary.
So don't ask me to think.

 

Why do you want to tell me stories about food?
Why torment me with your miracles of plenty?
Where have the bread breakers gone?
If only there were such multipliers of loaves and fish.
We'll give them the fish. We'll offer the loaves.
But these are your fantasies,
romantic images of antiquity,
best left to their glint and passed by.
They never were a model for future followers.
At most they are remnants of propaganda,
stunning feats to woo the faithful,
who crown him king.

 

 

The poem raises questions for us…..

 

Where have the bread breakers gone?

 

Are we bread breakers?

 

Do we have bread to offer?

 

Lets return to Galilee, to the hillside where the little became plenty, and all eyes were fixed on the bread breaker, the one in whose name we gather…..

 

Jesus.

 

Jesus has taken a fish supper for one and transformed it into a feast for thousands. The scriptures tell us quite simply that he received the little that was on offer and gave thanks…

 

What we may forget is that that day Jesus not only took the little that was offered to him, but also the little that he had to offer within himself, and brought about the miracle.

 

Yes Jesus was fully God, but he was also fully human, and at this time in his ministry he was desperately tired, not only that but he had just been on an emotional roller coaster….

 

News had reached him of the hideous beheading of John the Baptist his cousin, and probably his friend….. this was followed by news from the disciples, those he'd sent out to preach and to heal, bubbling over with excitement they had returned to their teacher with stories of miraculous answers to prayer….

 

Jesus response is given to us in the parallel account in Marks gospel; " come away with me, lets take a break, for they had not even had a chance to eat"

But the crowds are hungry for more, and as Jesus and the disciples set of in the boat, the crowds figure out where they are going and set off on foot hungry for more of the words that Jesus has to offer. Giving no thought to lunch or supper, their minds are on greater things….

 

No get away for Jesus and the twelve then….

 

And Jesus seeing their hunger is not annoyed but deeply moved, again he sits to teach them, and as the day is drawing to a close he beckons the now exhausted Philip and asks the question that was perhaps raised by his own rumbling stomach;

 

"Is there somewhere we can find something for all of these people to eat?"

 

Philip's incredulity is on full show…. what, you want me to provide food for this lot, that'll cost more than months of wages…. Impossible is not a word that is recorded, but you can certainly hear it crying out through the text!

 

Andrew has a different response; he has found a small boy with five small loaves and two fish and brought him to Jesus…..

 

What was going to be supper for one is about to become supper for 5,000 plus….

 

Jesus does not roll his eyes at the impossibility of it all, does not laugh and send the boy away…

 

Sending the disciples to ask the hungry crowd to be seated he takes the bread and gives thanks, breaking it…..

 

And once again God provides for his people….

 

It was almost Passover, and the stories of God providing manna in the desert will be fresh in people's minds as they prepare for the feast….

But they are about to be served another feast, an impossible feast, a feast where plenty comes from nowhere…

 

So what do we learn from Jesus and the disciples and how does this impact us here today….

 

Are we like Andrew of Philip? Do we see the impossible, or dare we raise our eyes to gaze into the eyes of the one who makes the impossible possible?

 

Are we like the small boy, daring to offer the little we have, or would we have found a quiet corner to devour our feast before returning home alone?

 

We live in a time where questions are raised about the future of the church, we look at dwindling numbers and finances and drop our heads in despair…. we become like the residents of the refugee camp, when we should be those who feed them, bringing life and hope….

 

We have little, but we have Jesus, who broke bread and gave thanks and brought about a miracle….

 

Hope has not deserted us, for Jesus still has compassion upon us just as he had compassion on the crowds that day….

 

And lets not forget that he was exhausted, and stretched….

 

But he gave thanks and broke bread, and he calls us to follow him, to do the same…

 

Where are the bread breakers?

 

We are his bread breakers….

And if we feel weak then we need to turn our eyes upon him again, Jesus the one who pours his love into our lives by the Holy Spirit…

 

Jesus in whom we find all we need….

 

So let us get down on my knees before the Father, this magnificent Father who parcels out all heaven and earth. I ask him to strengthen us by his Spirit—not a brute strength but a glorious inner strength—that Christ will live in us as we open the door and invite him in. Let us ask him that with both feet planted firmly on love, we'll be able to take in the extravagant dimensions of His love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God.

 

Eyes on Christ who supplies all that we need. The impossible made possible in and through him….

 

Where are the bread breakers?

 

We are the bread breakers, for he has called us to follow him!

A sermon for Mothering Sunday: A tale of risk taking love.

Scriptures: Exodus 2: 1-10, and John 3: 14-21

Our telephone rang on Friday, Paul my eldest son who is 27 was calling to say he'd been assaulted while on the way to work, he'd been punched straight in the face, was bruised shocked and minus one pair of glasses.

Mothering instincts stepped right in; I wanted to help and protect him, and had to restrain myself from becoming over involved and leave Paul and his partner Louise to deal with it. For me it was enough to know.

Mothers though will do crazy things for their children! An interview with a mother who had walked over 100 miles across difficult terrain to a refugee centre carrying two young children revealed that she had done so for them, for herself she'd have given up, but she simply had to give them a chance for life!

I believe that it is that kind of craziness that caused Jochobed, Moses mother to take the risk that she did, the risk of defying Pharaoh, of hiding and suckling Moses for as long as she possibly could before taking the extraordinary step of making a watertight basket for him and releasing him onto the Nile.

Now I believe that there are elements of the story missing here. I believe that Jochobed was no fool, that she knew where Pharaoh's daughter came to bathe, and that she did not indiscriminately cast her tiny son onto the river, she set him at a place, among the reeds so that he would not drift down stream…

Was Moses sister Miriam in on this plan? I suspect that she was, and I am sure that both mother and sister were praying hard as they set their plan into action.

Jochobed took a huge risk with her son; letting him go must have been heart wrenching!

Enter Pharaoh's daughter, down to the river to bathe, she spotted Moses basket "caught" in the reeds, and with the help of her attendants she rescued the basket and peered inside. She was faced with a Hebrew baby, a boy, someone her father had decreed should be drowned, indeed he should have been drowned by now! But the sight of the infant unlocked something in her heart, and instead of casting him adrift, instead of drowning him on the spot she decided to care for him….

Enter Miriam, the watcher, and baby Moses is soon restored to his mother's arms, and she is paid to feed him!

Miriam took a huge risk in approaching Pharaoh's daughter, and the Pharaoh's daughter took a huge risk in defying her father… all of them were motivated by a desire to nurture and protect Moses! Dare I say, all of them were motivated by love?

Love compelled these women to take a risk; this risk taking love that began in the heart of the mother for her child grew and spilled over it was reflected in the hearts of Miriam and of the Pharaohs' daughter.

Love is a strange and powerful thing! So often we cannot control or contain it, it overwhelms us and causes us to reach out beyond ourselves….

The Bible tells us that God is love, all powerful and all knowing quite capable of being self-sufficient except for one thing, God is love…

That love compelled him to create. And here we are a gloriously messy flawed, difficult and rebellious expression of love! And our messiness and flaws haven't caused God to turn away from us, instead they caused him to concoct the most outrageous rescue plan in history….

We read the words so easily; For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that all those who believe in him shall not perish but have everlasting life…

We know the story of the incarnation, we know the story of the crucifixion, we know them sometimes too well, so well that we fail to be assaulted but the sheer outrageousness of them.

Jochobed's plan to rescue Moses is a pale reflection of God's plan to rescue his creation. Jochobed's love for her child intense and overpowering though it was does not come close to expressing the love of God for this world and its people…

And so just as Jochobed cast Moses onto the waters of the Nile, God cast himself in Christ upon the world, like Jochobed the time and the place were carefully chosen, like Miriam he waited and watched….

…and this is where we come in!

The story is outrageous, that God should become a baby, choosing to be born in a seemingly insignificant town at a seemingly insignificant time… But God knew what he was doing; he knew the risk that he was taking. He knew that ridicule and crucifixion lay ahead. He also knew that within his breast lay the power to bring about a mighty resurrection, that this story so carefully wrapped and placed into humanities hands would have an impact far beyond the place and time of its setting.

Our part is the part of Pharaoh's daughter, we don't know her name, but we are called if we dare to take the risk, to unwrap the basket, and to find within it a treasure so great that we will take risks to protect it.

This story is the ultimate love story!

God is taking a risk that we will respond to his love, that we will recognise and receive it, when we truly receive that love it will not grow cold and stagnant within us it will overflow and fill us and we will be compelled to follow it.

Jochobed took love to the river, and taking the greatest risk of having her mother's heart broken she cast her love into the waters of the Nile. Miriam followed love to the river bank, watching over the precious life of her brother, Pharaoh's daughter found love awoken within her heart as she drew the child from the water and cared for him as her own….

This powerful picture of love is but a reflection of the love that God has for us, in Christ he has given himself to us, through the presence of the Holy Spirit he watches and waits for us to respond.

Has love awoken within your heart?

Can you hear the Holy Spirit wooing you to the water's edge, willing you to unwrap the gift of life that is being offered there?

For God so loved the world, so loves the world, that he is inviting us to become a part of his risk taking enterprise, to allow his gift to dwell so richly within our hearts and lives that it will overflow from within us to touch the world around us…

For this is more than a story and it cannot be contained!

God is love, and in love he has taken a self giving risk, and today he gives us the opportunity to respond to that gift afresh, to be so touched by it that our only response can be love in return.

The question is are we willing to enter the waters and to receive the gift?

 

God the Mother by Farid De La Osa

Sermon blogging...an unlikely evangelist... ( a new look at the Samaritan woman- John 4)

I am going to start with some stories, stories to remind us of some of the wonderful characters of the Old Testament, for when we see God's hand at work in their lives, it might just throw light on the impact of Jesus conversation with the Samaritan woman. For God has a knack of using unlikely people!

Think of Gideon hiding wheat from the Midianites in a wine press, calling himself the least member of the weakest tribe, called to lead an army ( an ever diminishing army at God's hand) to victory, and to destroy the altars of Baal!

Why, because the Spirit of the Lord had taken hold of his courage!

Take a look at Ruth, a pagan from a pagan land, although she was a grieving widow, her heart was soft, she cared for her mother-in -law, and she chose God over the pagan god's of her homeland. Ruth travelled with her mother-in-law to Bethlehem, and listened for wisdom's ways, and so she takes her place in the genealogy David and ultimately of Jesus.

Why, because the Spirit of the Lord had taken hold of her heart!

Take a look at David the shepherd boy, the youngest in his family, anointed to be king. Famous for his victory over the Philistine Goliath, David certainly wasn't perfect, but again and again, through mistakes and wrongdoing David choose God's way. He was no stranger to repentance, and yet he is known as a man whose heart was after God.

The Spirit of the Lord had taken hold of him!

These three characters are but a few examples offered to us by the Old Testament, I would encourage you to read their stories, to hear their voices speaking to us today, to see how the Spirit of the Lord took hold of them.

But what on earth, you might ask has this got to do with a Samaritan woman who meets Jesus at a well hundreds of years later?

Let's listen to her question to Jesus again, looking beyond the preconceived ideas we might have about her morals, ignoring the fact that we might have been told she was only asking questions to divert Jesus from seeing who she really was. I would like to introduce you to the Samaritan woman, as a theologian.

She has already had a conversation with Jesus about water, ordinary water as drawn from the well, and living spiritual water, promised by Jesus, her thirst for spiritual truth has been awakened;

“Sir,” the woman said, “you must be a prophet.  So tell me, why is it that you Jews insist that Jerusalem is the only place of worship, while we Samaritans claim it is here at Mount Gerizim, where our ancestors worshipped?”

Her thirst grows deeper with Jesus answer:

Jesus replied, “Believe me, dear woman, the time is coming when it will no longer matter whether you worship the Father on this mountain or in Jerusalem.  You Samaritans know very little about the one you worship, while we Jews know all about him, for salvation comes through the Jews.  But the time is coming—indeed it’s here now—when true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. The Father is looking for those who will worship him that way.  For God is Spirit, so those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.”

The woman said, “I know the Messiah is coming—the one who is called Christ. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”

  Then Jesus told her, “I Am the Messiah!”

I am the Messiah. I am, she heard those words, and not even the censure of the returning disciples could dampen the fact that the Spirit of the Lord had taken hold of her, and she ran back to the town calling the towns folk...

Come and see a man who told me everything I ever did! Could this be the Messiah? The story goes on to tell us that many of the Samaritans believed because of this woman's testimony, and they came and begged Jesus to stay with them, and for a few days he did.

The Samaritan woman, turned theologian, had become an evangelist.

We might say she was an unlikely evangelist, but in God's plan there are vast wells of potential within each one of us; Moses was a murderer, David a murderer and an adulterer, and yet when push come to shove they chose God's ways- because the Spirit of the Lord had taken hold of them and turned their hearts towards him.

I believe that God is at work amongst us today, wooing us, calling us  to choose her living water, to choose life.

Have you allowed the Holy Spirit to take hold of you? Have you heard her call? Are you thirsty for her living waters to flow in your life?

For the Spirit comes to guide us, to lead us into all truth. By the Holy Spirit the word of God is opened to us afresh, she is gentle, and she provokes us, she comforts us and she stirs us to change. She empowers and equips us to live in God's ways, and it is by the Holy Spirit that we are able to worship in Spirit and in truth.

God is calling us to be open to his work amongst us, to become alive in him we need to receive the Holy Spirit, and not just once, but as we walk with God through the daily decisions of life we can ask for him to be present in and with us, listen to his questions to us in a hymn we often sing here:

Will you come and follow me if I but call your name?
Will you go where you don't know and never be the same?
Will you let my love be shown? Will you let my name be known,
will you let my life be grown in you and you in me?

Will you let my life be grown in you? Then receive the Holy Spirit, allow God to pour life giving water out upon your life.

If you find the invitation to receive difficult? Then listen to another verse from that hymn;

Will you love the "you" you hide if I but call your name?
Will you quell the fear inside and never be the same?
Will you use the faith you've found to reshape the world around,
through my sight and touch and sound in you and you in me?

God is wooing you, calling you to dare to lay aside that fear today, to dare to say I want to go from here changed, I want to make a difference in this world! To dare to acknowledge that in order to do that we need ( every one of us) to accept the Holy Spirits work in our lives, to allow her streams of living water to bring life to the desert places of our hearts and minds and wills, to be changed. To be among those who say, The Spirit of the Lord has taken hold of me, and I am his!

You may think that you are an unlikely to be called by God, but then as we have just heard, God chooses unlikely people all of the time.

Picture by He Qi