Testing times - Sunday 14th February 2016

Temptation and testing are not the same thing. When we are tested, our weaknesses are explored. When we are tempted, they are exploited. When Jesus was led into the wilderness by God’s Spirit it was in order to be tested. It seems that before he could embark on his public ministry, Jesus needed to pass some tests.
He faced three tests: 1) would he use the power of God simply to serve his own needs, 2) would he take short cuts to achieve his goal, and 3) would he be more interested in impressing people, than in helping them? These are fairly fundamental tests that we all need to face in some way.
During Lent, it is customary for us to test ourselves. This is a good thing to do. The thing with tests is that the gain is not so much from passing them, as in learning from our failures. One of my sons is currently preparing for his GCSE exams. His school are giving him regular tests so that he can learn from his mistakes. That’s how tests work.
Jesus spent 40 days sitting the devil’s tests, and he had is pretty tough time. But that is what he went into the wilderness for.
During Lent we will gain from letting ourselves be tested. However, don’t choose a test you will easily pass. Choose something that will push your limits, that may well involve failures, that will help you to be a human being better.

Quietly does it - Sunday 7th January 2016

The day that 5000 people gate-crashed Jesus’ attempt to give his exhausted disciples some rest gives us some insight into Jesus’ priorities. The event occurred shortly after John the Baptist’s execution by King Herod (just a few miles away round the lake shore), and that vast crowd came to Jesus intent on overthrowing Herod and making Jesus king in his place.
It was a pivotal moment. Jesus could have gone with the crowd. He could have joined the revolution. It would probably have led to a blood bath, and we will never know how it would have ended. But he didn’t.
Jesus had a different plan. He talked to the people about God, using his usual mix of crazy and thought provoking stories. Then, after a few hours, when they were all tired and hungry, he fed them with a simple meal generated from one boy’s picnic. Then Jesus slipped quietly away.
The power of God, seen in Jesus, is not the political power of laws and armies, of influence and control. Jesus employs a much quieter and humbler power: the power to look after people’s basic needs.
Throughout history, Churches and Christians have often been seduced by offers of power and significance. It is a fundamental human weakness, but it is not the nature of God. As the season of Lent calls us to review our lives and our attitudes, we will do well to follow Jesus’ example, to discretely address people’s fundamental needs, and then slip quietly away.

Quiet Action - Sunday 31st January 2016

On one of his visits to Jerusalem, Jesus went to the pools of Bethesda, which were believed to have healing properties. There were a large number of sick and disabled people there, but Jesus only spoke to one of them - a man who had been disabled for nearly 40 years. As they talked, it emerged that this man was alone, and had no-one to help him when the opportunity for healing was presented by the volcanic waters being stirred. Jesus simply said to the man: “Get up, pick up your mat, and walk.” And he did.
There are three things worth noting:
1. Jesus did not attempt to cure everyone, but only this man who had no-one else to help him. We easily get overwhelmed by the scale of need in the world, but it seems that God does not expect us to sort it all out. He does, however, desire us to be attentive to those who have no-one else to help them.
2. The man cured promptly got into trouble with the religious authorities for carrying his mat on the Sabbath Day. Jesus was not inclined to let traditional religious law get in the way of the work of God. It is all too easy for us to use law and tradition as excuses for not doing God’s work. Caring for people in genuine need must always be a higher priority.
3. After healing the man, Jesus disappeared into the crowd, and the man had no idea who had healed him. This was typical of Jesus. He did not help people to draw attention to himself or to promote his message. He helped people because they needed help. We need to be wary of doing things because they will promote our faith or our church. If we follow Jesus, we will do what needs to be done and then melt into the crowd.

Talking with Jesus - Sunday 24th January 2016

What would it be like to talk with Jesus?
Looking at the story of his encounter with a lone Samaritan woman beside her village well (John 4), we get an insight into what a conversation with Jesus might be like.
The first point to note is how free from prejudice he was. Asking this lone Samaritan woman to give him a drink crossed a number of established social, racial, moral and religious boundaries. Jesus appears unconcerned about such things.
Next, it is well worth noting the gentle way he engaged in the conversation. To begin with, Jesus worked with the subject immediately to hand - drinking water. He was neither dogmatic nor doctrinal, but subtly shifted the conversation from the physical to the spiritual, contrasting well-water with ‘living water’. It sparked a lively conversation. Then, when the woman changed the subject onto places of worship, Jesus went with her and took a similar approach. He engaged her with an intriguing and unexpected perspective on her chosen subject. He did something very similar with his disciples when they arrived and started talking about food.
Jesus did not attempt to control or dominate these conversations. He went with the flow and used the matters in hand as metaphors for spiritual realities. He didn’t change the subject; he raised the subject onto a different level.
Perhaps we should expect God to speak to us in a similar way, reflecting on the mundane things around us, and challenging us to see them as metaphors for more important matters.

Under the radar - Sunday 17th January 2016

Imagine you are at a birthday party and, when the moment comes to bring out the birthday cake, it is found, splattered over the floor, with the dog helping itself to the pieces. Disaster! After sharing the news with a few people, you walk into the kitchen to discover the largest, most splendid birthday cake you ever saw. The candles are lit, and duly blown out. And, as everyone tucks into their slice, there is universal agreement that the cake tastes just as amazing as it looked. But no-one knows where it came from. All the caterers can say is that one of the guests told them to look in a back room, and there it was, ready and waiting.
That - more or less - is what Jesus did at the wedding party in Cana.
There are two things to note: firstly that Jesus solved the crisis with remarkable quality and quantity (he produced a lot of very good wine); secondly, he did it very discreetly (only the servants knew what had happened). That was Jesus’ style, how he usually did things. And that, therefore, is God’s style. God does amazing things but does them amazingly discreetly. The Christmas story carries the same hallmark.
People of faith often like to make a big splash of God’s behalf. If God does something, they want everyone to know. But that isn’t God’s style. Jesus did God’s work without any fanfares, and only the servants knew. That - it seems - is how God tends to do things.

An Animal Perspective - Sunday 10th January 2016

When Jesus was baptised in the River Jordan, there were two animal references: the Spirit of God descended on Jesus in the form of a pigeon (most Bibles use the nicer sounding word “dove” but pigeons and doves are the same thing); and John the Baptist pointed out Jesus to some of his disciples saying, “here is the lamb of God”.

Pigeons and lambs are notably low status animals, which rest at the bottom end of the food chain. They were common creatures in that part of the world.

There is a long association of animals with deities in the history of religion. As a general rule, deities were associated with strong and powerful animals: lions, bulls, eagles etc. In the coming of Jesus, God was doing something quite different, and these two animal references express it. God does not come among us in power and strength; he comes among us in a lamb and pigeon sort of way - quietly, humbly, peacefully, gently and vulnerably. 

God chooses to meet us on at lower end of life’s pecking order.

Noticing the Star - Sunday 3rd January 2016

There is nothing in the Bible to suggest that the star which the Magi saw was particularly bright. Indeed, the fact that so few people seem to have noticed it would imply that it wasn’t particularly bright at all. God did an amazing thing, putting a new star in the sky, and yet only a handful of people seem to have noticed. The same pattern is there in the story of the shepherds: a whole host of angels appeared to announce Jesus’ birth, but only a handful of lowly shepherds saw them.
God was doing something amazing, but only a few people knew. (Possibly no more than 10.) Which raises a question: Why them?
Millions of people celebrate Christmas, and there a billions of people on our planet, but only a relatively small proportion take much interest in what God was actually doing in the birth of Jesus. Are we special? The shepherds weren’t. Perhaps, like the Magi, we are the ones who cared to look, and bothered to respond. But they weren’t necessarily the wisest of wise people, and neither are we.
As Christians, we may be a small minority. But if, by some accident of circumstances, we have become linked to Jesus’ story, then we have a part to play. The Magi and the shepherds got off their backsides and did something. So must we!